The Dos and Don'ts of Using Performance Management Tools

HR tech­nol­o­gy can do a lot for a thriv­ing busi­ness, but you need to know how to use it. Here are our top tips to get you started.

If you’re look­ing to improve per­for­mance and boost employ­ee engage­ment with­in your organ­i­sa­tion, you might have con­sid­ered invest­ing in per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware. Doing so would be a wise move, con­sid­er­ing how this HR soft­ware can pro­mote reg­u­lar feed­back, assist with employ­ee devel­op­ment and track reg­u­lar per­for­mance dis­cus­sions between man­ag­er and employee.

But, as with most things in life, you need to set­up and use per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware in the right way in order to get the most out of it. Below are the inte­gral dos and don’ts of using per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware in order to improve com­pa­ny per­for­mance in the long run.

DO employ the KISS (Keep it Sim­ple, Stu­pid!) rule with regards to per­for­mance man­age­ment software

The phrase ​‘Keep it sim­ple, stu­pid’ is believed to have been coined by Kel­ly John­son as a design prin­ci­ple used in the US Navy. The premise is that the best sys­tems are sim­ple and straight­for­ward — and this is a prin­ci­ple that should cer­tain­ly be con­sid­ered with rela­tion to per­for­mance man­age­ment software.

It can be tempt­ing to get car­ried away with the pos­si­bil­i­ties when using soft­ware, but if you want to effec­tive­ly embed it into your exist­ing per­for­mance man­age­ment sys­tem and want employ­ees to use it reg­u­lar­ly, it needs to be sim­ple and stream­lined. The soft­ware is a per­for­mance man­age­ment tool that should help to sup­port and encour­age fre­quent feed­back and mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions, rather than get­ting in the way of them and cre­at­ing bureaucracy.

Book Your Personal Demo Today

DO find per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware that is intu­itive and user-friendly

Not all per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware pack­ages will be right for you. Some will require a peri­od of train­ing and not all busi­ness­es have the time and resources to spare. For this rea­son, you should shop around to make sure that the per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware you pur­chase is intu­itive and user-friendly.

Always keep in mind the fact that if users have to be trained in how to use it, then it’s not intu­itive enough. The plat­form should be clear and obvi­ous so users can focus on hav­ing great con­ver­sa­tions and giv­ing reg­u­lar feed­back rather than work­ing out how to use the software.

DO find per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware that trains as well as serves

You want a per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware that will sup­port and encour­age best per­for­mance man­age­ment prac­tice, which is why we at Clear Review have incor­po­rat­ed per­for­mance man­age­ment guid­ance videos into the soft­ware itself.

These videos cov­er essen­tial skills includ­ing set­ting SMART objec­tives, hav­ing qual­i­ty con­ver­sa­tions and giv­ing mean­ing­ful feed­back. This way, man­agers are well-informed and equipped, able to access use­ful infor­ma­tion when­ev­er they need it.

DON’T assume per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware will cure all your company’s issues single-handedly

Per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware is a great tool, but it won’t work mir­a­cles as soon as it is imple­ment­ed. To cre­ate a gen­uine per­for­mance man­age­ment cul­ture, any soft­ware needs to be sup­port­ed by a well thought out change and com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan, with buy-in from the top.

As with any oth­er organ­i­sa­tion­al change, the incor­po­ra­tion of per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware into your busi­ness will take time and effort — but the pay­off will be worth it in the end.

DON’T expect the soft­ware to be imple­ment­ed overnight

You might be excit­ed about your new per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware pack­age, but try to man­age your expec­ta­tions. It’s pos­si­ble that, ini­tial­ly, not every­one will be as thrilled as you are — your man­agers will have many demands com­pet­ing for their attention.

So after you do your launch, don’t expect every­one to start using the soft­ware reg­u­lar­ly from then on. New habits take time to devel­op, so you’ll need to sup­port the new soft­ware on an ongo­ing basis with peri­od­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions (includ­ing emails, newslet­ters, posters, etc.). Here at Clear Review, we pro­vide our cus­tomers with a 12-month com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan tem­plate and tem­plate comms mate­ri­als to help encour­age the adop­tion of the soft­ware and new per­for­mance man­age­ment processes.

To stay com­pet­i­tive, your com­pa­ny needs to take full advan­tage of any and all oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve pro­duc­tiv­i­ty lev­els and busi­ness per­for­mance. To find out how Clear Review per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware can help take your busi­ness to new heights, book your free per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware demo.