Top 9 performance management tools to maximise productivity

Incor­po­rate these per­for­mance man­age­ment tools to boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, engage­ment and per­for­mance long-term

Human Resources is an agile and con­stant­ly evolv­ing field. It is exact­ly this agili­ty that allows HR process­es to make a real dif­fer­ence to employ­ees. Employ­ee work-life bal­ance, well­be­ing and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is huge­ly depen­dent on the process­es and sys­tems we put in place as HR professionals.

So we 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 OneAdvanced Performance & Talent, we have spent some time research­ing the best per­for­mance man­age­ment tools used by mod­ern organ­i­sa­tions. If you incor­po­rate and prop­er­ly utilise all the per­for­mance man­age­ment 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 and has now been embraced by com­pa­nies such as IBM, Google, Cargill, Harper­Collins, IBM and ITV.

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 proven to be a seri­ous waste of time and mon­ey. We pre­dict that reliance on a sin­gle annu­al appraisal will be a thing of the past in a few years.

2. The 5As approach to goal setting

For a while, SMART goals have been the go-to in terms of goal-set­t­ing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, they don’t work for all organ­i­sa­tions, and they only tell part of the sto­ry. Busi­ness­es today are com­plex, col­lab­o­ra­tive and rapid­­ly-evolv­ing. This new decade calls for a new way of think­ing about objec­tives, which is why we at OneAdvanced Performance & Talent rec­om­mend the 5As approach to goal setting.

This per­for­mance man­age­ment tool and objec­tive process must be col­lab­o­ra­tive. Goals should be set joint­ly — and should be assess­able, aspi­ra­tional, aligned, account­able and agile:

• Assessable: This goal can be mea­sured, so it is clear when it’s achieved.

• Aspirational: An aspi­ra­tional goal is stretch­ing, encour­ag­ing employ­ees to test them­selves and devel­op, ulti­mate­ly dri­ving high performance.

• Aligned: All goals with­in the organ­i­sa­tion should feed into over­all organ­i­sa­tion­al goals and objectives.

• Accountable: Employ­ees need to know that they are account­able for the goal itself, and they need to under­stand if the goal is shared with oth­er team members.

• Agile: Goals should be near-term (achiev­able with­in four months) and reviewed reg­u­lar­ly to keep them mean­ing­ful and relevant.

3. Real-time feedback

Fair and accu­rate feed­back is crit­i­cal to great per­for­mance. 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 per­for­mance man­age­ment 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, man­ag­ers and employ­ees 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 that pos­sesses a sense of direc­tion and focus in rela­tion to their careers.

5. Reward and recog­ni­tion schemes

No employ­ee works just for a pay­check. It has been shown that 80% of employ­ees work hard­er when they feel appre­ci­at­ed, while many work­ers feel more moti­vat­ed by appre­ci­a­tion than mon­ey. Fur­ther evi­dence sug­gests that high-recog­ni­tion com­pa­nies have 31% low­er vol­un­tary turnover than com­pa­nies with poor recog­ni­tion cultures.

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.

6. A well­be­ing scheme

Did you know there is a proven cor­re­la­tion between well­be­ing and employ­ee pro­duc­tiv­i­ty? Employ­ees can’t per­form at their best when they feel at their worst. They can’t be pro­duc­tive when they’re burnt out, over­worked and over­whelmed. A for­ward-think­ing organ­i­sa­tion knows this and puts mea­sures in place to cater to employ­ee well­be­ing. Some com­pa­nies do this in the form of flex­i­bil­i­ty; some have well­be­ing coor­di­na­tors. Your well­be­ing ini­tia­tives will vary depend­ing on your com­pa­ny cul­ture, your bud­get and your employees.

7. An excel­lent onboard­ing process

Does your onboard­ing expe­ri­ence engage new hires from their first day? Does it set clear expec­ta­tions and help new starters build a pos­i­tive, trust­ing rela­tion­ship with their man­ag­er? If the answer is no, you need to over­haul your cur­rent process, as onboard­ing is where you set the tone for an employee’s entire career with­in your organisation.

A great onboard­ing expe­ri­ence is one of the most cru­cial per­for­mance man­age­ment tools, with research sug­gest­ing that com­pa­nies who get it right improve new employ­ee reten­tion by 82%. The process should include reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled check-ins between man­agers and new starters, where employ­ees will be able to ask ques­tions and raise con­cerns. Man­agers can also use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to set goals and keep track of progress. The best onboard­ing process­es are long-term and ensure new staff have a clear under­stand­ing of what’s expect­ed of them.

8. Employ­ee surveys

Accord­ing to a sur­vey, 74% of employ­ees report that they are more effec­tive at their job when they feel heard. Employ­ee sur­veys are a use­ful tool to gath­er anony­mous feed­back on engage­ment, com­pa­ny ini­tia­tives and well­be­ing, which man­age­ment and HR teams can use to take action and make key organ­i­sa­tion­al improve­ments. As well as giv­ing employ­ees real-time feed­back, it’s essen­tial to accept it in return and be open to enhanc­ing the employ­ee expe­ri­ence. In addi­tion to sur­veys, a sug­ges­tion box is anoth­er effec­tive way to hear direct­ly from employ­ees and make them feel valued.

9. Engage­ment, well­be­ing and per­for­mance man­age­ment software

Evi­dence has shown that employ­ee engage­ment, per­for­mance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty are close­ly linked. Know­ing this, it makes sense to man­age per­for­mance and employ­ee engage­ment in one plat­form — which is what we offer with our per­for­mance and employ­ee engage­ment soft­ware.

Employ­ee engage­ment soft­ware helps man­agers and employ­ees dis­cuss well­be­ing and engage­ment issues dur­ing their fre­quent one-on-one check-ins. With this soft­ware, you can gath­er employ­ee feed­back, analyse it and tru­ly under­stand your company’s engage­ment lev­els. Get­ting a han­dle on employ­ee engage­ment will inevitably have a pos­i­tive impact on productivity.

At OneAdvanced Performance & Talent, 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.