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Implementing a performance management system into your organization will increase employee satisfaction, communication, and productivity. The issue is selecting the right performance review software for your business.
If you can sift through all the options and find the right software, you could drastically reduce the overhead of the whole process. When trying to decide which performance management software is right there are a couple of rules you should follow.
Firstly, review your current system, whether it’s manual or automated. Make a note of whether there are any aspects that are lacking and whether a new system would be the answer. You should also consider the following:
- Requirements: What features are you looking for? Do you want a platform that covers every aspect of performance management or something more specific?
- User interface: Consider how user-friendly the interface is. Ideally, it must be something that’s easily accessible for all the workforce.
- Reporting capabilities: For small companies, performance management software needs to include real-time reporting. It allows managers to gauge where their employees stand and who they may need to pay more attention to.
- Integrations: Decide whether you’re looking to integrate the software with any other systems, such as Slack.
- Free trial: A demo might not give you enough information. The only way to truly understand a platform is to take it for a test drive.
- Support: Does the software provide support and is it sufficient?
- Cost: One of the biggest factors for most companies has to be the cost. Determine your budget as this will eliminate a few software providers.
Once you’ve decided on a performance management system, integrating it can be a challenge. If you want to ensure it’s not a failure and lives up to your expectations there are some things you can do to make sure you get it right and implement your new system effectively.
Establish a Project Team and Prepare a Plan
Integrating a performance management system is something that affects everyone. It’s therefore very important that it’s carefully planned and treated as a formal project. Establish a dedicated team that includes HR, line managers, and employees.
Prepare a plan that includes dates and responsibilities for individual tasks. The plan should encompass all stages of the project from planning and picking the software through to the system going live and ongoing analysis.
Define Why You Need the System
For any project to be successful, the teams must understand why there’s a need. Define the problems the system is going to solve, its goals, and the criteria you’re going to use to measure its success.
Document Your Requirements
Before you choose the software, document the requirements, after splitting them into essentials and desirables. Take into account functional requirements, such as what you want the system to do, and non-functional requirements, such as look and feel and intuitiveness.
Get Internal Buy-In
It’s crucial that you have senior management on your side. Prepare a business case study and this might also help secure funding. You also need to get influencers and stakeholders to buy in as soon as you can. Involve them in the early stages and you’re more likely to get their support.
Configure and Test the System
Once you’ve configured the system, you must test a full end-to-end process starting with setting up a new user. Checking any data integration processes you’ve set up for the transfer of employee data from your HR system is also important.
Plan Communications
Introduce the new system before it launches. Release several communications to introduce it and how it should be used. Use a range of methods because different people respond better to different forms of communication.
Set Up Support Arrangements
If the software you chose is intuitive and easy to use, there will be little need to train employees on how to use it. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t need support arrangements in place. Specific queries or concerns may come to the surface and there may be employees who are not especially computer savvy.
Carry Out a Pilot
Choose one or two departments that can carry out a pilot test before you launch the performance management software company-wide.
Ideally, the departments should go through part of the performance management cycle and you need to ask for feedback. You need to know how easy it was to use and whether there were any difficulties.
Launch the Software
Before the official launch, run some final checks on the reporting lines and employee data. Check emails have been whitelisted by the IT department so they don’t end up in people’s junk email folders.
Once you’ve launched the system, remember to put processes in place to measure the progress against the original goals and success criteria.
In addition, regularly seek qualitative feedback from employees on how they found the software, what features they have and haven’t used, and if they think anything can be improved.
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