If you ask a manager which part of their job they look forward to the least, chances are they’ll say annual employee reviews. Often seen as pointless and unmotivating, yearly appraisals aren’t just demanding and nerve-racking for managers; they tend to be a stress-inducing experience for the employee, too.
Most people who have received annual reviews believe that the evaluations weren’t a true reflection of their performance over the year. When writing an appraisal, managers tend to highlight an employee’s most recent accomplishments or failures since it’s the most recent occurrence in their memory – in comparison to everything that happened over the full year.
A year is a long time, so by the time a worker receives their appraisal, whatever issue was at hand either is too late to fix or isn’t relevant anymore. Managers, therefore, fail to accurately depict an employee’s true work performance and potential.
Employees often feel like traditional performance management facilitates favoritism, potential unfairness, and biases since it’s at least partially based on personal opinion. This can have a damaging impact on the employees psyche or self-worth.
Once the employee starts feeling inadequate or unvalued, they start to disengage. Leading to the final step – resignation. According to Gallup, the loss of productivity of not-engaged and actively disengaged employees equates to 18% of their annual salaries. This means that disengaged employees on an average salary of 50k cost a company of 10,000 people $60.3 million a year.
If you are curious about learning how you can transform and improve your workforce with the help of software for employee monitoring and (continuous) performance management, you’re at the right place. Let’s uncover the connection between monitoring data and managing employee performance.
Performance Management With Monitoring Data
Performance management is the process of ongoing activities and communication in support of accomplishing self-development and achieving the strategic goals of an organization. Ideally, this leads to the creation of a work environment where employees feel encouraged to work to the best of their abilities.
Ever since the 2010s, performance management is focused on increasing employee motivation, productivity, and maintaining high retention rates. This created a demand for a more comprehensive approach to tracking and evaluating employee progress, which brought us all kinds of management software. Most importantly, data-driven performance management.
Many Fortune 500 companies, such as Deloitte, Adobe, Dell, Microsoft, etc., figured out the secret to successful, modern employee management and performance tracking. They abandoned yearly reports and introduced software solutions with frequent reporting. Why? One simple word: data. Data is reliable, accurate, easy to track and analyze, and most importantly – can’t be biased nor express favoritism.
Monitoring software for employees is used to track, record, and analyze the worker’s actions while on the clock. This tool turns on as the employee starts working, collecting data that offers managers unique insights into how they spend their time. These actions create a better understanding of who the employee is, how they do their job, and if something needs to be changed. Monitoring data is also used to quickly identify potential problems within the workplace or employee performance.
Through analytics and collected data, managers can learn about the employee’s strengths and potential weaknesses, while guaranteeing objectivity. This solution allows for a hands-on approach if an employee is struggling since monitoring data can quickly point out the warning signs.
The benefits of using monitoring data for performance management:
- No favoritism
- No bias
- Fairness guaranteed
- Intuitive performance tracking
- Employee retention rates get higher
- Proof of work
- Less stress for both employees and managers
- Allows for a smooth transition to hybrid work
- Data is factual and offers deeper insight into employee activity
- Allows a proactive approach to employees and their work
Data-driven employee management is already seen as a sign of the times by many leading companies worldwide. The beneficial effects of this approach lead to higher productivity, greater employee satisfaction, and higher employee retention rates; eliminating the added costs of hiring new talent.
Employee Reviews and Monitoring Data
Objective data gathered through software for employee monitoring can greatly assist in creating employee appraisals. Performance reviews are a small part of performance management but can make the biggest difference in how a company operates. Annual reviews used to be the norm for companies, but continuous performance evaluation has shown to be much more effective.
The data-driven analytics within this tool effortlessly transform employee performance data into relevant information needed for a constructive appraisal. Creating fair and unbiased appraisals is much easier and more time-effective when monitoring data is used.
Employee monitoring software offers real-time information on what your employees are doing throughout their workday, as well as how much time they spend on certain tasks or projects. That kind of information can be a helpful part of their review as it can demonstrate progress and improvement in worker productivity or engagement.
This solution gives managers the ability to follow employees’ productivity rates, making it easier to spot employees who need more support and who earned a reward due to their achievements. The data helps bridge the gap between employees and managers while promoting a healthier and more holistic workplace for all. Constructive reviews that accurately portray employee performance have the power to increase worker satisfaction, as well as bring your team closer together.
Remote Performance Management
By now, we’re all very aware of the fact that the era of long commutes and 9-5 office jobs is practically over. In 2020, most companies had to switch to remote working due to Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and lockdowns. Research conducted in the past few years showed that employees don’t want to return to the office. Having the opportunity to work remotely is a prerequisite now, not an added benefit.
Working from home allows more flexibility, but it also comes with a set of challenges. For example, certain elements of performance management can be demanding in remote and hybrid environments. Monitoring data is necessary for remote performance management since it promotes transparency and progress.
Implementing a data-backed approach to performance tracking is also one of the easiest ways to transform your company into a hybrid or remote workplace. In a remote setting, data and managing performance create a more responsible and more organized team.
Data-driven Success
Performance management and employee appraisals, whether traditional or continuous, are still viewed as key indicators of a company’s success. The goal of data-driven performance management is to ensure that employees are working effectively and in accordance with the strategic objectives of the company while developing their own skills.
Monitoring data in combination with performance tracking creates an impressive management system that fosters open communication, frequent feedback, and ideally, trust.
