8 Ways Technology Is Changing Performance Management
Performance reviews have long been integral to performance management, but recent technological developments have revolutionized the way reviews are handled, how feedback is given, and how employees are engaged.
How has HR tech turned outdated review processes into effective performance management ? Here is just a small survey of the biggest innovations in this domain:
1. Face-to-Face Reviews
Face-to-face reviews where employees and managers can discuss goals, identify opportunities for improvement, and refine successes are the backbone of performance management. New technology allows managers and employees to keep track of these review cycles more carefully and with less effort. Now, managers and employees can run a smooth, efficient review process with minimal work, allowing them to focus on what really matters: performance itself, not administrative tasks.
2. 360-Degree Reviews
In a 360-degree review, employees receive feedback from not only their bosses but also their colleagues. This process gives the employee a better understanding of how their work is perceived throughout the organization, as well as how their work affects the entire company. New technology can facilitate the 360-degree review process efficiently, allowing colleagues to exchange feedback with total ease.
3. Time-Based Reviews
Gone are the days of yearly reviews. For a modern-day company, effective performance management means more frequent or even continuous performance conversations. While such a process might have been too time-consuming to be feasible in the past, performance management technology now makes it totally attainable.
4. Completion Tracking
Completion tracking technology holds your team members accountable, ensuring the review process is completed on time and without delay. Performance management technology allows managers to keep track of what is done and what is still pending at a glance.
5. Continuous Performance Tracking
Do you know all of your employees’ goals for this year? For this quarter? How often do you check in on their progress? Performance management software takes the hassle out of tracking employee goals, allowing managers to keep tabs on each of their team members in one central location.
Performance goals enable employees to plan and organize their work for more efficient outcomes. By setting and tracking these goals, you not only keep your team productive, but you also help employees thrive in their roles and advance in their careers.
6. Real-Time Feedback
HR tech empowers managers to give feedback when it matters most: in the moment. Rather than waiting until it’s too late to course-correct, managers can use new performance management platforms to relay feedback to employees continuously throughout a task, project, or time period. When it’s time for a review, managers can easily pull all that feedback together and get a comprehensive overview of the employee’s performance to date.
Given that millennials are the largest generation in the workforce today, these feedback capabilities are particularly important. According to Gallup, millennials desire more feedback than any other generation.
7. Quality of Hire
For effective recruiting and hiring, you need to know what kind of talent your team regularly brings in. Performance management technology can help you track overall quality of hire by measuring the performance of new hires against relevant internal benchmarks for specific roles and competencies, as well as cultural fit metrics.
Tracking quality of hire can also illuminate challenges in your hiring process and open up dialogues about the situations your talent acquisition team deals with. This clearer understanding of how hiring works can lead to more informed decisions about recruiting and retention strategies.
8. Employee Development
About 30 percent of companies have no succession plans in place. Without them these companies have no way to strategically foster talent to ensure the continued growth and success of the company.
Succession planning can’t happen without performance management. Through performance management technology, organizations can align employee development with the values, goals, and future needs of the company, creating a streamlined internal talent pipeline.
A version of this article originally appeared on the ClearCompany blog.
Sara Pollock is head of the marketing department at ClearCompany.