How to measure employee performance reporting?

It is often said that a company is as good as the performance of its employees. Therefore, it is mandatory for an organization to continuously and accurately evaluate an employee’s performance. The evaluation of the employee’s performance is an indicator of his/her development and the role it plays in the company’s success. However, assessing the performance of the employee is a tedious process and both the employees and the employers are wary of the hassle to gauge the performance. Not only the manual performance review is a time-consuming and costly process but it also creates anxiety due to uncertainty over the feedback.

As the yearly performance review method is gradually being discarded by companies, an overwhelming number of companies are now opting for performance management solutions to streamline the process of employee performance reporting.

There are many merits in adopting a new process to evaluate the performance of the workforce and the exercise of employee performance review once or twice yearly is thing of the past. Today, nearly 43% of employees receive weekly feedback, as 45% of HR leaders don’t consider annual employee review as accurate. In this blog, we will shed light on the process to measure and report employees’ performance using performance management solutions.

Problems faced by employees that hamper their performance

An employee performance review can help a company to excel in its performance and meet its organizational objectives and goal, besides enhancing the skills and development of the employee. It is an effective tool to let employees grow and reach their full potential through constructive feedback. However, there are certain problems associated with employee performance review, some of these are:

It is a time-consuming process

An employee performance review is a time-consuming process both for managers and employees. Reports suggest that on average, a manager spends over 200 hours preparing annual performance reviews. Hence frequent reviews must be carried out instead of annual reviews.

Creates anxiety

Employee performance reporting system can create anxiety among employees. It has a direct impact on the prospects of an employee with a company.

Complex process

The performance evaluation process in any organization is very complex. To streamline the process, many companies use software to evaluate an employee’s performance based on set parameters.

Can be ineffective

It is sometimes possible that performance reviews aren’t effective because of distrust between the employees and the supervisors. There are credibility issues any analysis or performance metrics produced by supervisors will not be taken at face value by employees. The lack of credibility can be the result of poor communication, inexperienced management, or incompetence.

One-way communication

Performance evaluation becomes a one-way communication flowing from supervisors towards the employees. In these communications, the employees are not included rather receive the diktat from the higher authorities causing low morale among the employees.

Besides, it is important to note that an employee’s performance in a company may suffer due to multiple reasons; some of the reasons for poor employee performance are as follows.

Lack of consistency

Poor employee performance reporting can also be the result of inconsistent feedback from supervisors. Mixed messages may result in resentment and confusion among employees. Small organizations are more prone to the damages that are the result of mixed messages. It is because, in smaller organizations, employees communicate more frequently with each other about those mixed messages.

Lack of established goals

Another reason that could be the cause of the poor performance of employees is the lack of organizational established goals. In case the goals are not well established, the employees will have difficulty in determining whether they have accomplished their tasks or not. For the employee’s performance reporting to be effective, the companies must specify or communicate their goals to the employees.

Absence of clear strategy

Not just the absence of goals but also the absence of a clear strategy on how to achieve those goals can adversely affect the employee’s performance metrics. The team leader must provide proper guidance and a plan for the employee to follow. A clear strategy is also beneficial for a company to measure its performance and course correction mid-way in case of present strategy is not effective.

What are the benefits of employee performance reporting?

Regular performance reviews are a healthy sign of constant communication within the organization and play a role in the high retention rate. Companies today employ performance management software to review the performance of the employees frequently. There are several benefits of regular employee performance reporting, these are:

Identify, track, and maintain the goals

With regular interactions, it becomes easy to understand the employee’s goal. With employee performance review, a supervisor can identify the weakness and limitations of an employee and the pace of development of an employee over a fixed period. It keeps employees in sync with the company’s goals and objectives.

Prevent miscommunication

No organization is immune to misconceptions or misunderstandings regarding expectations about work. Regular interactions help overcome these misunderstandings through discussions and inquire. Any concern regarding the work can be addressed during these scheduled meetings without affecting the workflow.

Regular feedback helps in course correction

Yearly reviews can be very intimidating besides regular feedback helps an employee to correct any mistake as and when noticed. It also keeps the employees engaged and gets praised for their good work. According to reports (Source), 32% of the employees do not get regular feedback affecting their work while 63% of employees feel they do not get praised for their good performance.

To help the companies meet their objectives, companies employ performance management software that has distinct advantages. This cloud-based software is beneficial as:

It keeps everyone connected

These systems keep the managers, employees updated on any progress, development plans, and objectives. Changes to the plan can be made instantly and can be accessed from any place.

It facilitates regular performance review

It helps in keeping the staff motivated and looking to achieve the target. The objectives are made flexible and reviewed at regular intervals.

Provides real-time feedback to employees

Feedback is provided in real-time right after any event. The quicker is the feedback, the more is its impact, as constructive criticism only helps in improving the performance.

Keeps track of personal development plans

Personal development is a key driving force for employee engagement and performance as they get the assurance that the company is investing in the future. The employees can grow, become more skilled with it.

It helps in objective setting

Employees must be aware of their work objectives. The software helps in setting clear, smart objectives that are aligned to the company’s goal.

What are the challenges in assessing an employee’s performance?

There are many challenges in evaluating the performance of an employee. Some of these challenges are underlined below:

Career development becomes secondary

An employee’s performance evaluation process, if not well structured fails to focus on developing the skills and abilities of the employee. Most employees feel that the company does not focus on their career development.

A review is limited to a pay hike

When review becomes limited to the pay hike process, an employee only tries to bring the positives before the managers. This in turn would result in restricting the employee’s ability to learn and grow. 

Lack of real-time data makes the entire process meaningless

The reports suggest most of the employees often rely on their memory in assessing the performance of the employee. This makes the entire process meaningless and ineffective. The inability of the managers to document employee’s performance at every step and ignorance of data-based (performance) decision-making makes the performance evaluation process a failure.

What is the solution to the employee’s performance review process?

The solution to all the problems emanating in offices can be easily resolved using employee performance management software. The main objective of the software is to ensure that all the employees are working to their full potential to achieve the organizational goals. The software helps in bringing the managers, employees on the same page and align them to their responsibilities. It brings transparency to the organization.

Two main objectives of the software are:

Conducting the annual performance review becomes easy as both the managers and the employees are aware of expectations.

It keeps the employees engaged as well as motivated and indicates that the company values its assets.

As more and more companies are opting for performance management software, the benefits of using the software are tremendous, some of the benefits are:

Easy to use

One of the biggest advantages of using the software is the ease of using it. All the things that are necessary for performance review are available in a single place and the entire process is automated with no manual intervention. Once the manager fills in all the required information like dates, review templates, etc., there is nothing else to do but oversee the process.

The manager doesn’t have to constantly remind the employees to complete the review; rather the software sends constant reminders to the employees. This software has an in-built system to send reminders to the employees and complete the process. The managers are relieved of the responsibility to send reminders and focus entirely on the performance reviews outcome.

Integrated process

Many features are included in the software that presents a holistic view to the manager regarding the work profile of the employee. It includes sharing feedback, objectives, and goals, and when the review is undertaken, all these factors are included. The software presents a complete picture of employee performance and helps them in making informed decisions.

Insights on employee performance

The software creates a complete profile of the employee. It is not only based on the ratings or the feedback received over some time but also includes performance analytics. These analyses are in the form of charts, graphs; calculate the leadership potential of the employee among other things.

At the time of review, this analysis comes into the picture to decide the increased pay scale or even promotion to the respective employee. Thus, it is a very handy tool and enables the company to make transparent decisions based on the work done and goals achieved by an employee.

Better control

The software enables a manager to have complete control over the entire performance review process. They get the liberty to decide when the cycle will start and subsequently ends. Also, they can decide on the number of employees that will participate in the process. To increase transparency, the managers can restrict call-back reviews, restrict review visibility, etc.

Conclusion

Performance management is all about establishing a chain of communication between the employees and the management. Its objective is to encourage the employees to work efficiently to their full potential in realizing the organizational goals. The performance of the employees in an organization is thus required to be assessed. Earlier it was done by managers manually and the employee review is carried out every year, but slowly the entire process has changed.

Now the employee review is done on a monthly or weekly basis, as it is found to be more productive both for the employees and the company. The earlier method employed to track employee performance had many flaws creating uncertainty and confusion among the workforce. It also creates friction among the employees, resulting in low morale and working below potential. The feedback wasn’t regular to employees further aggravating the problem.

Most businesses gradually became aware of the business management software that comes in handy for employee performance reporting. The software has many benefits for an organization as well as for the employees. From keeping the employees engaged by providing regular constructive feedback to create a culture of effective and open communication. Tailor-made software can be instrumental in improving the morale of the employees, and improve overall business performance. 

The software thus deployed by companies to assess the performance of the employees is composed of many tools. These tools are so designed that it keeps the managers, supervisors and the employees on the same page. These tools are instrumental in creating an accurate job profile, along with setting up realistic expectations. It further drafts the goals of the organization and then aligns them with their respective responsibilities.

The main objective of the software is to keep the company ready to meet all its desired goals in time. This is done by actively engaging the employees and evaluating their performance, sending feedback in real-time, and praising their efforts.