Transform Employee Reviews With Continuous Performance Management

In recent years, many companies became aware of the fact that traditional annual appraisals have little to no effect in a modern workspace. They leave managers feeling stressed out and frustrated, and lead employees to feel unappreciated, unmotivated, and completely disengaged.

Many big companies, such as Deloitte and Adobe, took note of the redundancy of the traditional employee reviews and started slowly adapting to a new, beaming trend in performance management - continuous performance management.

An effective performance management system has the power to improve employee productivity, boost morale, improve work performance, and so much more. This process is more than just an annual employee review.

It’s the continuous process of bettering performance through creating individual and team goals that align with the company, planning performance, reviewing progress, and developing the skills of employees.

In order to improve the performance management process, the HR software market went through a hectic transformation, bringing us, what some call a “performance review software revolution”. We, now, have a plethora of tools that help managers create more productive teams and better, unbiased performance appraisals.
 

First, let’s get you acquainted with continuous management through performance tracking tools, how it can better your business, and what the overall benefits of implementing this software are.

Traditional vs Continuous Performance Management

When managers use more traditional management techniques, a performance appraisal occurs once to twice a year. This frequency is one of the core problems with the traditional appraisal approach. Let’s say that a valued employee exhibits some performance issues over a certain period of time.  The traditional approach won’t help identify and fix the issue at hand promptly.

Similarly, it might be difficult or stressful for the manager to remember all of the employee's mistakes, accomplishments, or successes in the given time period, which makes creating such a performance review harder. Many managers tend to give performance appraisals based on their most recent memory of the employee’s performance, which is an issue since it doesn’t provide a complete image.

The other main issue with traditional performance management is the fact that it’s unclear if these appraisals actually help the employees’ development. Employees’ annual review is focused on their accomplishments and performance in a past time period, often without mentioning what their future development will look like, and it rarely talks about the employee’s skills and abilities.

Continuous performance management, on the other hand, allows managers to develop a healthy workplace relationship with the employees as it fosters continuous feedback through regular check-ins, setting goals, and applying real-time changes thanks to real-time feedback. Research has shown that this way, employees can both be more productive and manage their productivity better.

Traditional management focuses on the past, while continuous management focuses on the future and the present. The easiest way to implement continuous management is to implement the right performance management software for your organization.

Performance Management Software

With continuous performance management becoming one of the biggest HR trends, the HR software market has also been revamped. With the birth of performance tracking software, Verified Market Research projected that this market will reach $5.82 billion by 2027.

What is this revolutionary tool exactly? Performance management software is a cloud-based solution that helps managers implement a continuous performance management framework and captures key performance points easier. Since this tool is data-driven, it ensures that all employee appraisals remain fair and unbiased, while helping the business achieve more systematic improvement.

The main benefit of using this type of software is that it heightens overall productivity and employee satisfaction. Employees can gain insight into their productivity and see where they need to improve or focus more on their efforts. This can bring gamification to productivity, thus boosting morale in the workplace, remote or onsite.

Additionally, employees’ sense of autonomy will increase, which will lead to a work environment with better goal management and higher accountability. Companies that embrace continuous performance management see a drastic improvement in their employee retention rates.

Continuous Management Creates Happy Teams

Data-driven performance reviews, apart from having a multitude of benefits for both the manager and the employee, are also cheaper and more time-efficient for your company. It’s an easy way to keep track of the success of your employees, as the software captures their progress and productivity.

You can have real-time insight into how your employees are doing, and apply feedback promptly. This way your team will perform smoothly, and you won’t have to worry about forgetting key moments that are important for the appraisal process. Managers won’t ever have to use defensive or strict tactics with continuous management in place.

The whole point of continuous employee appraisals is also to leave room for employees to evaluate and improve themselves, making them more self-sufficient, take on more initiative and exhibit a more active role in their professional development.