Whether you are running a big organization with hundreds of employees, or a small company with just tens, employee performance is a critical component for the survival of your business. Although the methodology, approach, and complexity may differ from a company to another based on the internal culture, industry, size or other factors, the core of a successfully implemented performance management remains the same; technology.

Based on the recent changes introduced to the workplace such as transparency, data availability, access to resources and competitive demand on them, new concepts became part of modern organizations, which can form the distinction between their survival or failure. Whereas previously, employees were just a component within an organization, now, successful employment is at the core, and employee experience is a goal that most organizations strive to achieve, as it helps increase productivity, retention and company stability.

Learn how SimpleStrata can help you measure your employee performance in an easy and engaging way. Try it now

To achieve an employee experience which attracts and retains the targeted highly skilled workforce, an organization must have a robust performance management system, which provides an accurate and fair evaluation of employees, while at the same time, is considered easy to understand and adopt, by both the HR personnel and other employees.

Thus, the traditional manual performance management is not an option, even for small companies, as it results in a huge waste of time, inaccuracy of data, lack of visibility, subjectivity, and conflicts. Consequently, it ends up as an annoying process for all the involved.

On the other hand, executing your performance management process through a system yields a bunch of advantages, below are the main ones, to mention just a few.

• Instant access and visibility to real-time results
  Reporting the actual of a KPI, or the progress of the task as soon as it is completed, provides a real-time update to performance. In addition, having performance scores instantly generated, provides visibility to the HR and performance staff, as well as for the employees themselves, which makes performance reviews a smoother and less awkward task for all parties.
• Self-motivation and triggering
  As humans, we love to see ourselves winning and be perceived by others as such. By knowing their scores and visualizing their progress, employees will be self-motivated to perform better and be more productive, so that they could keep their state as winners, or improve it to be so.
• Accurate planning and reporting
  Planning is key to success. However, unclear targets or invisibility on current performance prevent accurate planning, since the employee doesn’t know where he currently stands, or where he wants to reach next. A well-designed performance management tool displays instant updates to current performance status, while it also allows employees to plan their activities to achieve their results and take corrective actions in time.
• Reference availability
  With a proper performance management tool in place, all performance-related data is saved in one place and available for reference at any point in time. This is important for employees as well as performance personnel as it reduces debates and conflicts, and facilitates other processes such as training and development, performance reviews, appraisals, and so on.
• Better employee experience
  Employees already have enough tasks on their plates that they don’t have the time to waste on collecting and reporting performance data manually in the traditional ways. Providing a performance system to your organization members facilitates the process of monitoring and reporting results, and makes it a fun activity to do so, thus enhancing the overall employee experience.
• Alignment
  Having all the performance data saved in one place helps in visualizing the relations and dependencies between the different employees’ KPIs, jobs, and tasks. Automating task assignments and reporting facilitate collaboration and communication between employees and help them understand how their jobs interrelate with each other, and how they can cooperate for optimized performance. This reflects into better alignment between the organization members and towards achieving the company’s goals.

Implementing the right performance management tool will allow you to witness those advantages, which you won’t be able to achieve if you are using traditional ways for monitoring and tracking performance, such as emails, excel sheets and annual reviews.

At SimpleStrata, we’ve accompanied several organizations through this journey, and our numbers speak for themselves. As of now, more than 5,000 employees are effectively reporting and tracking their KPIs through SimpleStrata, with increased engagement and productivity levels.

Are you struggling to manage your employees’ performance and increase their work productivity?

SimpleStrata can help! Watch the video now

Strategy teams and performance specialists are usually responsible for communicating performance measures to employees and making sure they are reporting their actual achievements on time, in order to generate accurate performance reports.

If you are in one of those positions, then you know for sure how important it is to have dedicated software to help manage this process, rather than doing it manually through Excel sheets which is very time and effort consuming.

Once you’ve determined to start using a software, you will have to evaluate multiple systems to make sure you choose the right solution for the set requirements. In addition, you want to assure that the selected solution will be accepted and adopted by end users.

In this post, I am going to share quick tips that you can use as a guide for evaluating and choosing the right performance management tool thus ensuring you maximize your ROI.

Learn how SimpleStrata can help you manage your organization’s performance in an effective way. Try it now. 

To start with, you need to set your requirements clearly. Once you start evaluating different tools from vendors, you may be overwhelmed or misled by the bulk of features and functionalities presented to you, which you may not necessarily need. Unless you have a clear list of requirements, you may be pulled into making wrong purchase decisions.

To help in identifying your requirements, I suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

• Who are the targeted users? Strategy team? Directors and top management? Managers and team leaders? Employees? Or the whole organization?
  The selected software should be designed in a way that provides features and functionalities tailored to each user group so that they all get engaged and interact with it. You don’t want your system to be used by some users only.
• How many users are expected to use the system?
  The selected system should be scalable to fit the required number of users, even if you have a limited number as a start. Adding, assigning or removing users should be an easy task that can be handled by the system admin with no technical intervention required.
• Will users enter the data manually or will result be read from other systems and applications?
  Some systems come with limited functionality in terms of data input channels. Make sure the selected system will accommodate all your needs. If manual entry is required, you also need to evaluate the system’s friendly capabilities to engage end users through notifications, reminders, alerts and quick easy actions for reporting.
• How often do you report your data?
  The frequency of your reports should be supported in the system. The best option to go with is a solution that supports configurable reporting periods which can accommodate any changes to your methodology in the future.
• Is there any historical data that must be reflected in the system?
  If the answer is yes, then the system should support importing that data in bulk, rather than inputting it manually.
• Will users use mobile devices for interacting with the system?
  To maximize users’ interaction and promptness in reporting, it is recommended to choose a system that has a mobile app which allows instant access and updates.
• Should the system support multiple languages? If yes, which ones?
  Check the system’s compatibility with the required languages in terms of interface, data input, and outputs.
• Should the system allow users to set their KPIs and measures, or that will be restricted to the admin only?
  Some systems allow certain actions to specific user groups only. Make sure you are exploring all possibilities that satisfy your methodology of execution.
• How often changes are applied to the KPIs or strategy data?
  Some systems are very difficult to set up and handle by the normal user and require technical intervention for making changes and modifications. When you are evaluating a system, ask questions about adding, modifying, linking, reassigning components, etc.
• Is the strategy data interconnected? Does it include different levels of relations and links among its components?
  Some systems are built based on pre-defined execution frameworks and therefore, allow only certain types of structures and connections. Make sure the system you choose will be able to reflect your exact structure, without having to make any adjustments to it to fit the system. The best choice would be a system that is flexible and agile to changes, since what works for you today may not work tomorrow, and you may need to implement some changes to the existing framework. You don’t have to look for a new solution for every change!
• Will the system allow users to cascade KPIs and assign tasks?
  Ensure that the system you chose supports the level of detail of execution you are looking for. Some systems allow cascading up to one level only. Some accommodate strategic KPIs only and don’t drill down to employee KPIs. Some allow setting and reporting KPIs only, and don’t handle the efforts part where tasks and activities are assigned and reported. My recommendation is to have a system that will allow all options. Although you may not use that functionality immediately, you want to have it available once you are ready to use it.
• Will you need to generate custom reports based on the data you have in the system? Do you have an idea of the expected number of required reports?
  You should have a general idea about the expected reports from the system. This includes identifying the data you need to see, analyze, compare, etc. Also, you need to know what reports and dashboards can be generated for normal users.
• What type of training is expected? Online, onsite or through tutorials?
  Training set up sometimes depends on the organization’s culture. However, some vendors have special training programs that accompany the system implementation. Make sure you select one of those because user enablement and adoption are of critical importance to successfully launch the system. If it not used as intended, then the value of having it is not achieved.

Refer to the above questions during your product evaluation as they will help you sorting your options and filtering out some of them. In the above context, my recommendation is to try out SimpleStrata, our suggested solution that answers most of the above questions and provide you with maximum flexibility to accommodate adjustments and apply changes as needed, with minimal effort and cost.

Using SimpleStrata, we’ve helped many organizations managing their organizational performance in an effective way while contributing to the adoption of the system through our specialized technology adoption programs.

Learn how SimpleStrata can help you manage your organization’s performance in an effective way. Try it now

In my previous blog, I shed light on the importance of changing the terms of engagement between employee and employer. However, both parties might be naturally reluctant to this kind of drastic change, simply due to a fear of the unknown.

The trigger

Our brain’s primary function is to help us survive. Because of this, we prefer routine actions that we know are safe and risk-free. However, certain triggers can cause the brain to leave its comfort zone and take a new direction. Triggers like this can be external or internal.

An external trigger is outside of your control. It could be anything from an advert to someone bumping into you in the street. These triggers occur from the things around you, whereas internal triggers are typically be based on your perception, and elicit durable and longer-lasting feelings of positive or negative emotion.

The main objective of a trigger is to push you to take action. In the context of creating an employer-employee agreement, two external triggers are particularly important — law and results.

I recommend offering two types of agreements for employees to fulfill these triggers; a flexible arrangement that's based on results, and a traditional agreement that's based on attendance.

Flexible Agreement

A flexible agreement will allow employees to act more like business partners and mature professionals. This agreement will offer the employees full control over their time and actions.

With this agreement, the employee-employer relationship is governed by the results only, and employees will receive immediate rewards depending on whether the right results are achieved. Employees don't need to get permission from their managers like a student in a class, and it can help to ensure that employers accomplish

the results that they are investing in. This can give also give employees a sense of ownership and a strong positive internal trigger.

A traditional employment agreement is based on current labor laws, whereby the employer has full control over the employee’s time, and the employee must stick to their workplace’s attendance system.

This risks triggering a negative emotional response for the employee, as they might miss social or family events while sticking to their contracted work hours.

This traditional agreement isn't always ideal for employers either, as it can become increasingly challenging to ensure that employees are using their time in the office effectively on work tasks. It can mean that employers follow a micromanagement strategy that isn’t sustainable in the current technological era.

The first trigger is positive, while the second trigger is a negative one. Combining them will give you an excellent effect that will push both employee and employer to take action into creating a results-based agreement.

With time, employees will get used to freedom these kinds of results-based agreements bring, and the employer will have more time to build successful strategies. Over time, the old days of micromanaging will vanish.

Implementing the New employer-employee agreement

This section outlines the preliminary KPIs that you need to include in any flexible agreement. I recommend making it more straightforward at the beginning by only monitoring the deliverables, which we call the Purpose of Hire. Most companies try to measure every single result and spend months if not years trying to find the optimal KPIs that govern results-based engagement.

Please read our blog on 3  KPIs That Bridge the Gap Between Employer and Employee to learn more about this topic.

[ ] Deliverables and time

[ ] Cost

[ ] Quality

Now, both employee and employer are following results-based engagement, which is ideal. However, this agreement should show immediate reward to ensure that both parties aren't reverting to the old agreement. This can be easily reviewed by having a monthly review. In this review, the deliverables will be assessed, and a score will be generated - it's vitally important to have a score, as a positive score

offers immediate rewards to both the employee and employee. Postpositive review, the employee will get the flexibility promised, and the employer will get the deliverables that were requested.

Monthly reviews should continue, and the scores should be accumulative so the employee will have measurable assets for their future. Even if shortcomings appear in one report, scores can stay high as employees can maintain good credit.

I recommend having these results visible to all employees, as A Players will feel proud and try to protect their status, while low-performing performers will work harder to avoid social pressure.

Warning: With this shift, an employer might lose some of B Players who are not willing to take ownership. There might also be some resistance and attempts of keeping the old system, but this is a response to any overhaul, and the benefits for getting it right far outweigh the costs.

How can SimpleStrata help you?

SimpleStrata, integrated with iDenedi,  will help organizations embark on this transformational journey. By announcing the implementation of iDenedi, you can start the trigger process and create increased motivation among your employees — and SimpleStrata gives you an easy way to create and manage your KPIs. It's scoring award-winning systems in the award stage, and its mobile feature creates the crucial visibility that is required in the investment stage.

Get in touch to find out how we can improve your business practices. Fill out the form to enquire.