Performance management is an essential tool for managers. Most companies use some kind of technology to help them track things like performance, performance ratings, and employee engagement. Performance management tools can help you and your team build trust, track progress towards goals, and continuously identify areas to improve. That’s what makes them so valuable to the organization. Using performance management tools effectively is critical to enhancing employee performance, improving engagement, and helping your organization succeed. Technology is the best way to accomplish this despite being a bit challenging at times. In this article, we will tell you how to use technology for performance management at your company today.
Virtual Check-ins
Virtual check-ins are a useful way to stay connected with your employees, resolve issues, and address concerns with them throughout their work week. Rooting out issues before they major become problems and providing guidance to employees should be part of continuous performance management. And with the right tech, you can do it without having to schedule an in-person meeting at all! To set up virtual check-ins for performance management, all you really need to do is set aside time at the beginning of each week (or month) for employees to submit their goals and progress reports. Ensure they have access to video or teleconferencing tools (like Zoom or Skype), so they can interact with management via video chat. Other forms of communication can also help facilitate virtual check-ins, but the last thing you want to do is bother people on their own time. Never underestimate the value of scheduling regular check-ins with your staff and using them to manage employee performance. You’ll be glad you did when you see performance rise exponentially and notice happier employees on the overall.
360-Degree Feedback
360-degree feedback is a process for collecting observations about an individual employee from many different sources. This might include people who work in different roles and have different seniority relationships to the individual. Each person can bring a fresh perspective on the individual’s performance. This helps the employee understand how well they’re doing, what they’re doing right, and where they can stand to improve. This creates a culture of coaching, reviewing, and rewarding that can help employees thrive. By utilizing this process through email, instant messages, slack, and even video conferences, you can engage in a meaningful interaction to provide continuous feedback to employees on the team. What makes 360-degree feedback a worthwhile pursuit is its ability to focus on strengths and be backed by research/data that provides the employee with pertinent information that can help them be more successful. In this manner, this type of feedback becomes an essential part of the perfomance management process throughout the organization.
Engaging in Conversations
To engage in meaningful conversation with employees, you need to be able to provide a platform of understanding with no misunderstanding. Employees should feel at ease, comfortable, and not intimidated in the least by management. Since part of performance management involves monitoring and planning, you can seize the opportunity to engage in those activities when you’re having a conversation with your employees. This is where technology can come into play. Any performance management system that you use should be able to help you create meaningful interactions while maintaining employee culture. Everyone should be on the same page and have access to the same information/data. While increasing engagement and retention is important, you need to also have high productivity at your company. With the right conversations, continuous coaching, and helping your employees set themselves up for success, you can make your workplace a better functioning machine by utilizing the appropriate tech.
Identifying Improvement Areas
Performance Management is all about providing data and actionable insight. When you get the most information you can about employee performance, it’s easier to help them perform better. Identifying improvement areas is part of that process. It starts by tracking progress using technology. This might be progress toward goals, outcomes, or other vectors you might choose to measure. Keeping people on task is also a critical part of this. You also want to engage in regular check-ins to ensure employees are establishing, needing, and exceeding their goals. It’s also helpful for finding out which employees might need additional coaching or assistance in performing to higher levels. A 30 second conversation now could save hours later when mistakes become apparent and the proper corrective action has already been taken. Ultimately, performance management is one of the most critical aspects of a company’s success. It can be difficult to stay on top of, so it’s important to use the right tools and technology to identify critical areas before they can become a problem.
Tracking and Following Up On Goals
Perhaps the most important component of Performance Management is goals. Defining, setting, and following up on goals is one of the most crucial parts of succeeding as an employee. That’s why companies should consider using a goal-oriented performance management process for managing their employee goals. And that can mean the difference between succeeding and accomplishing goals or not performing up to standard. In the end, technology can be very helpful for performance management—especially when it comes to reinforcing and managing goals, development, and growth for your team.