While employee appraisal methods (also known as performance reviews) have had their fair share of critics, a lot of companies praise them as an efficient way to identify employee strengths and weaknesses, provide feedback and eventually, boost productivity.
But the whole process can be pretty time-consuming and leave you buried under a mountain of paper. Therefore, it is a wise idea to consider adopting employee appraisal software, which will not only automate much of the work, but help you go paperless, too. Here is a quick review of some of the best solutions available:
1. Halogen TalentSpace
Halogen is a company with more than 10 years of experience in providing software solutions. Its TalentSpace™ software provides a full range of talent management services such as performance appraisal, 360-degree reviews, succession planning, talent acquisition, and more.
The service dealing with performance appraisal is called Halogen eAppraisal™. In addition to automating the appraisal processes, it tries to make it “a collaborative, ongoing and strategic process.”
The Halogen Feedback Central™ facilitates giving feedback whether it comes from managers, HR or co-workers. Even an email can be quickly converted into a feedback entry.
Another useful feature is the authoring tool. Since it can be hard to write an employee evaluation, the software will help you by providing you with access to all sorts of information about the employee – previous appraisals, progress on goals, self-evaluations, etc. The software even helps with writing the text itself by telling the user if they are using legally inappropriate language and managing the nuance of the text to make it sound more positive. It even automatically makes pronouns gender appropriate.
It’s hard to list all the useful features of this software — there are just too many. You can track your employee’s goals and align them with your overall business strategy and export the metrics into reports, which are easy to understand. Halogen eAppraisal™ can be integrated with most Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS).
#2 HRM Direct
HRM Direct, founded in 2004, claims to be the “first true on-demand Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider in the HR space.” This software’s services are geared towards small and mid-sized companies, which need help with talent acquisition and talent management.
HRM Direct is packed with useful features you will love. You can align and manage all goals in real-time with a focus on speed. So even if you have to make a sharp turn in your strategy, you can quickly make sure everybody else follows suit. Progress can also be track in real-time and thanks to the powerful visual tool – easily represented in charts and graphs.
Finally, the software allows you to schedule meetings that revolve around your main strategy or a particular goal. This is a great option if you are working with distributed teams or people working from home.
HRM Direct even has another way to makes sure your company achieves its goals. It tries to engage employees by showing them how the results of their work contribute to the success of the company. That might not seem like a big deal, but employees are often demotivated precisely because they don’t see the impact of their efforts.
The software makes it easy to give feedback, whether it’s a minor remark or an annual review. You can use a feedback template or you can a create custom one that better fits your needs. As for 360 reviews, you can do them for as many employees as you like, thanks to HRM Direct’s flat pricing.
3. Sage HRMS Talent Management
Sage is a software solutions provider equally suitable for big and small companies alike. Their talent management software is a very versatile tool, which can be easily accommodated to your needs. Sage is frequently cited as a company with excellent customer service and a focus on custom solutions.
Sage HRMS Performance Management is Sage’s appraisal tool. It was built with the idea that feedback and assessment should be an ongoing process, rather than a one-time event at the end of the year. That’s why goal tracking, alignment and reporting are all automated.
If your company is providing compensation or bonuses on the basis of individual performance, you can integrate that in the software thanks to the pay-for-performance feature. You can create compensation plans with cascading budgets and give your employees an extra incentive to achieve their goals. Speaking of goals, Sage HRMS Performance Management can also automate development planning for each of your employees and provide assessment-based training.
Succession planning is also a breeze with HRMS’s option to build automated metric grids. Whenever you are wondering which employee most deserves a promotion or is the best fit to fill a new position, you can select a level of required competency and see employees’ most recent ratings and whether they fulfill the requirement. Also, if an employee has a desired job role, the software will show how well they fit for it, based on factors such as education, ratings, skills, etc.
As you can see, these three software solutions can do a lot to make your life easier when it comes to performance appraisal.
Are you currently using any methods for appraisal? Are they paper-based or automated? Leave us a comment and start a conversation!
About the Author: Lachezar Stamatov is a recent Psychology graduate with interests spanning across various fields – health, food, technology, sustainable farming, you name it. He loves blogging about human relations and event management, so follow his articles for more insights from those industries. He also regularly contributes to the Off Limits blog..
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