How Performance Management Systems & Tech Can Empower Your People

Planning, monitoring, developing, rating, and rewarding your people are the key tenets of a performance management system or framework. It is something designed to accomplish all of the above for UK businesses in a way that is consistent, measurable and actionable, with the system relying on a combination of employee performance software and methodologies to function effectively.

The system, as we covered in a recent article on the topic of employee performance reviews, relies on collaboration between UK managers and employees, with an emphasis on transparency, honesty and two-way dialogue. If effectively administered, the performance management system helps to improve wellbeing, productivity and team growth potential.

Central to the system functioning seamlessly is a robust employee performance review software that helps empower both UK managers and employees to stay productive, happy and engaged. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of performance management systems, the crucial role that software plays, and how PayFit’s performance review feature helps tie all of your people management and enablement initiatives together.

What is a performance management system?

Broadly speaking, a performance management system is any set of joined-up processes used to track UK employee performance. Consistency and measurability put the ‘system’ in this phrase. The tenets of performance management are individual development as well as development related to the strategic objectives of the wider business.

The system is collaborative and relies on open dialogue between employee and manager working together to define expectations, goals, the metrics to be measured, to partake in the giving and receiving of feedback, and for regular reviews. 

Traditionally, performance reviews were conducted using a simple Excel spreadsheet with a list of goals alongside comments and scoring boxes. This would then be stored away and referred back to at the next review to track progress. 

Yes, this is, in essence, a performance management system, but it’s a cumbersome and time consuming one. Information can easily get lost or deleted, it’s rarely visually engaging and requires staff to manually re-access the sheet in order to remind themselves of what needs to be done. Only 2 in 10 employees say that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.

Now, employee performance evaluation software does a great deal of the legwork for UK businesses, not only in terms of helping to track performance against objectives but by providing an intuitive and easy-to-use platform for both managers and employees. Building, running and analysing employee performance campaigns becomes a breeze whilst helping teams to stay productive and engaged.

What part does employee performance software play?

One of the main advantages of using software to manage employee performance is that it reduces the number of manual processes you and your team have to undertake. Cumbersome spreadsheets instantly become a thing of the past, with important data kept secure in a 2FA-encrypted cloud-based system.

The best employee performance management software in the UK tends to come loaded with a mixture of pre-built templates (e.g.: performance review, end-of-probation review, weekly 1:1, exit interview, etc.), as well as the capability to create your own system from scratch.

Software provides a secure and convenient place for both managers and employees to keep track of progress, assign statuses to goals and get alerted when things might be a little off track.

Better still, a lot of today’s UK employee performance review software syncs up to your existing HR software / HRIS, meaning that all employees’ HR information - performance management-related items included - can be inputted and assessed in one place, with no mistake-prone double data entry needed.

Software provides both parties with easy access to performance review campaigns but with the added advantage of being able to set access limits for certain individuals. In other words, managers can assign themselves admin rights and only allow employees to view and update goal status - something Excel or other simplistic methods can’t do.

Who should the key stakeholders be when it comes to employee performance management software in the UK?

By its very nature, all employees will interact with performance evaluation software at some point. This is essential to maintain transparency and open dialogue throughout the process - it should not be restricted to just the HR department and individual managers. However, the strategic direction and rollout (i.e.: how performance is measured, and against which metrics) should come from managers.

Employees should work with managers to define goals and then build review campaigns together in the system. HR leaders and team members should work together with managers to define the HR processes to support the review cycles, ensuring they are fair and aligned with the company culture, values and goals.

Ultimately, it’s up to managers to encourage and incentivise their employees to actively participate in the software and to manage performance overall.

PayFit’s performance review feature - and how it empowers your UK people

Less effort, more control, simple to use for everyone and collaborative - that’s PayFit’s employee performance review module in a nutshell - the perfect package for small to medium sized UK businesses.

Saving you time

Performance review campaigns can be created and run in a matter of clicks, with managers able to define who needs to participate, set timeframes and assign other managers (for example, HR or the strategy team) to review results.

Ours includes several different assessment templates and the ability to create a custom campaign from scratch. Then, it’s easy to monitor the performance of your campaigns with intuitive completion rate indicators and progress updates in one convenient place.

Working in harmony with your existing software

Our all-in-one HR software, with all employee information accessible in one place, means faster setup of your performance review campaigns and no double data entry. As we’re a payroll software by trade, this means that employees can access and complete their performance reviews from the same personal portal they use to access payslips and request annual leave.

Helping to create a feedback culture across your UK business

We empower people and increase collaboration by letting admins assign different reviewers for each campaign, enabling feedback across teams to help break down silos. And to help instil a feedback culture across your team, our 1:1 feature allows managers to set the frequency of catch-ups to further help improve performance, engagement and transparency.

Why not find out more about how we can help turbocharge your performance management processes, and other payroll and HR initiatives to boot, by booking a demo with one of our product specialists today.