If you’re a manager responsible for the management, development and appraisal of a team, then you will know what a serious responsibility it is, and, how much time the process takes up. As a manager, my own organizational skills were put to the test and keeping track of notes, appraisals and events wasn’t easy… but I’ve found something that should help us to make the process far more efficient.
I recently landed a freelance job to help a small but growing events management organization to restructure operations and to put in a performance management process. The budget was tight! I knew that managers were very hands-on, and managed their teams from within the trench; managers didn’t want to spend too much time on performance management! So it was clear that some form of automation and guided system was needed in order to build and maintain efficiencies, whilst keeping quality high. The other important factor is that my client is skeptical of marauding consultants on their site (I barely got in myself!)
I broke out my rolodex and called in my contacts who were in the performance management biz, but each solution was either too expensive or too time consuming for my client. So I drummed my fingers…
Then a buddy of mind pointed me to an inexpensive software solution – Performance Now Enterprise. I want to tell you about it because my client was sold on it straight away.
Performance Now Enterprise is a software tool for logging events, tracking goals, providing effective feedback, and writing employee reviews. It automates a bunch of tasks, information gathering, and reporting, and best of all, it produces the final performance appraisal report for you (saving you bags of time!)
It’s features are based around four key efficiency zones:
- The Performance Appraiser is an intuitive and easy-to-use tool that allows you to master each step of the evaluation process, access job descriptions, and transform observations into valuable feedback
- Use the Form Designer and enjoy the power to create a performance review system that is relevant to your unique organization
- A Performance Manager lets you and your managers track and build performance on a daily basis
- Finally, the Application Administrator gives you centralized security, control, and maintenance of access levels for your managers and employees
My client found that the software makes writing and keeping up with reviews for a large team much easier to manage than one based on paper/documents. It has an easy-to-use user interface. Custom review forms are easy to create, if you already have a company standard (so you don’t annoy the HR department, if you have one).
Performance Now Enterprise is for managers of practically any size of organization, although it probably sells best into small to medium organizations. You don’t need to be a technical genius, either. But like any new piece of software, the first few performance appraisals might take longer whilst you learn the ropes. However, efficiency savings should be apparent within a few goes, and overall I expect it to make serious time and effort savings, allowing you to get on with the important stuff – managing your team.
The great thing about Performance Now Enterprise, is that you can pick it up for less than 200 bucks! Even the smallest of organizations can afford this, and the payback will be soon to realize too.
