Top 5 Performance Management Tools to Maximise Productivity

Incor­po­rate these per­for­mance man­age­ment strate­gies and your organ­i­sa­tion is sure to flourish

Read our new Performance Management Trends for 2018 article

If you are in HR, you are well aware of the fact that ours is a con­stant­ly evolv­ing field. The flex­i­bil­i­ty of our work is what makes it so effec­tive, but it also means that we always need to be on the ball. It’s vital that we keep an eye out for emerg­ing per­for­mance man­age­ment trends, while research­ing effi­cient tools to stream­line exist­ing process­es and improve pro­duc­tiv­i­ty levels.

With that in mind, at Clear Review we have spent some time research­ing the best per­for­mance man­age­ment tools used by mod­ern organ­i­sa­tions. If you incor­po­rate and prop­er­ly utilise all the tools men­tioned below, the result will be a hap­pi­er, more effi­cient and more engaged business.

1. One-on-one per­for­mance check-ins

If you want to fol­low in the foot­steps of cor­po­rate giant Adobe, who reduced their vol­un­tary turnover by 30%, you should look at intro­duc­ing one-on-one per­for­mance check-ins. This trend is tak­ing over, with oth­er com­pa­nies such as IBM, Google, Cargill, Harper­Collins, IBM and ITV incor­po­rat­ing the tool.

Reg­u­lar per­for­mance dis­cus­sions through­out the year improve rela­tion­ships between man­agers and employ­ees, while build­ing employ­ee engage­ment lev­els and boost­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. In con­trast, the tra­di­tion­al approach to per­for­mance man­age­ment has been shown to be a seri­ous waste of time and mon­ey. We pre­dict that in a few years’ time, reliance on a sin­gle annu­al appraisal will be a thing of the past.

2. Aligned SMART objectives

The impor­tance of set­ting clear, straight­for­ward employ­ee goals is not dis­put­ed. It is essen­tial for employ­ees to cre­ate for them­selves real­is­tic but stretch­ing goals that will keep them moti­vat­ed and enthu­si­as­tic about the work they’re doing for your company.

On top of this, employ­ee goals need to be upward­ly aligned to com­pa­ny objec­tives. Using a sim­ple upwards align­ing process, as rec­om­mend­ed by man­age­ment experts The Cor­po­rate Exec­u­tive Board, unites every­one with­in the com­pa­ny and ensures you are all push­ing in the same direction.

3. Real-time feedback

Fair and accu­rate feed­back is crit­i­cal to great per­for­mance. In fact, stud­ies have shown that it can increase rates of per­for­mance by a stag­ger­ing 39%. How­ev­er, it isn’t sim­ply the nature of the feed­back that mat­ters — time­li­ness is also an impor­tant fac­tor. We now know that feed­back is more effi­cient when it is giv­en as soon as pos­si­ble. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, all too often, feed­back isn’t shared for weeks, or even months.

Real-time feed­back has been asso­ci­at­ed with a num­ber of ben­e­fits, includ­ing increased reten­tion, improved recruit­ment, bet­ter per­for­mance and an increased abil­i­ty to han­dle change. Thank­ful­ly, real-time feed­back is achiev­able these days, with the advent of tablets, lap­tops and smart­phones. Using per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware, feed­back can be giv­en by peers and man­agers at any time.

4. Per­son­al Devel­op­ment Plans (PDPs)

How much time and effort does your com­pa­ny spend on devel­op­ing PDPs? Accord­ing to research, per­son­al devel­op­ment is a key dri­ver of employ­ee per­for­mance and engage­ment. In fact, 87% of mil­len­ni­als state devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties are a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of what attracts them to a par­tic­u­lar com­pa­ny. To attract and retain the best of the best, the PDP is a tool you will want to incor­po­rate into your business.

PDPs aren’t a per­for­mance man­age­ment tool you should sim­ply pay lip ser­vice to, and then neglect for anoth­er year. Instead, man­ag­er and employ­ee should cre­ate SMART PDPs that can be updat­ed and reviewed online through­out the year. By encour­ag­ing this in their employ­ees, com­pa­nies ben­e­fit from a work­force who pos­sess a sense of direc­tion and focus in rela­tion to their careers.

5. Reward and recog­ni­tion schemes

No employ­ee works just for a pay­check. In fact, it has been shown that 80% of employ­ees work hard­er when they feel appre­ci­at­ed. Anoth­er source shows that 43% of employ­ees would feel more moti­vat­ed by appre­ci­a­tion than mon­ey. Final­ly, a fur­ther source states that recog­ni­tion can improve team cul­ture and reduce turnover. If you are look­ing to engage your employ­ees and inspire excel­lent per­for­mance, look into design­ing and imple­ment­ing a reward and recog­ni­tion scheme. Remem­ber, even if you’re a start­up, there are inex­pen­sive but effi­cient ways of reward­ing your team.

At Clear Review, we pro­vide mod­ern per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware to com­pa­nies all over the world. To see how we can help you and your busi­ness, book a per­son­al demo of our per­for­mance appraisal soft­ware today.