5 Best Performance Management Software for Businesses

For managers, conducting performance reviews can be cumbersome. At the start of each performance appraisal cycle, you need to set and communicate business goals before tracking your team performance.

You must also collect and analyze colleague feedback and self-assessment forms, and assign performance ratings. And then, you need to meet one-on-one with each team member and convey their performance history, share feedback, and talk about development areas.

Enter performance management software. These tools automate certain steps and allow managers to digitally track performance data. This smooths the performance appraisal process for managers and employees alike, as everyone can view performance data and feedback within a single tool, as well as complete any necessary acknowledgements or actions.

To help you start streamlining your performance review process, we analyzed software solutions from our performance review and appraisal FrontRunners report to round up the five best performance management software (presented alphabetically).

15Five is a cloud-based continuous performance management tool that allows managers to recognize team members, track 1-2-1 connects, and conduct periodic self- and manager-driven performance appraisals.

15Five’s performance management module allows users to automate the collection of self-assessments and 360 feedback from team members. Users can also ask team members to provide feedback on specific colleagues within the software’s interface.

15Five’s employee recognition functionality allows team members to share wins, achievements, shout-outs, and thank-you notes on a social wall, where colleagues can view, like, and share the messages.

Ally is a cloud-based objectives and key results (OKR) and employee performance management tool that lets businesses measure how each employee performs on their key goals and objectives.

Ally allows managers to create objectives, goals, task lists, and performance metrics and assign them to team members. These goals and performance metrics help managers clearly communicate what is expected of each employee.

The software also focuses on 360 performance evaluation, allowing managers to conduct goal-oriented peer reviews and 1:1s sessions for each team member. Users can also track the status of their performance appraisals in a dashboard.

Lattice is a cloud-based employee engagement and performance review system that offers review management, goal management, feedback tracking, and employee recognition functionalities.

Lattice’s performance review features let managers collect self-assessments and peer feedback, set team goals, create performance management workflows, and conduct periodic performance assessments.

Lattice also features progression management, so users can easily track employee development related to future promotions. This feature also lets users design manager-led employee coaching programs, which encourages managers to engage in career-related discussions with their direct reports.

PerformYard Talent is a cloud-based performance management solution that allows managers to complete performance reviews, set goals, and manage continuous feedback.

PerformYard Talent allows managers to create custom 360 feedback and performance review forms and distribute them to their team members. Users can also view how employees measure up against team performance with the help of visual charts and dashboards.

PerformYard Talent’s goal management functionality allows users to define goals and track real-time status on their completion.

Profit.co is a cloud-based performance management platform built on an OKR framework that allows users to define employee goals, set performance metrics, and evaluate performance based on these metrics.

Profit.co’s OKR features allow users to define team-wide objectives and implement key results for individuals. This approach gives managers a quantitative measure of individual performance, helping them compare actual performance against defined parameters.

Profit.co also allows managers to send self-assessment forms to their direct reports and record one-on-one performance appraisal notes. Managers can also automate the process of sending 360 feedback forms to team members and their colleagues.

Choose a performance solution based on your business needs

The most important thing to remember in your search to find the best performance management software is to base your ultimate choice on your business requirements. Here are a few tips to help you do that:

• Set an annual budget spend for performance management solutions. Eliminate products that don’t meet your budget criteria.
• Determine the performance management software features your business needs, and use this list of features to narrow down your shortlisted solutions.
• Request demos and free trials of each product on your final list to assess the usefulness of each solution in the context of your business before you make a final purchase.

Methodology

The five products with the highest ratings from performance management software reviewers are featured in this article. To be considered for this article, products had to:

1. Be top-ranked on Software Advice’s 2021 FrontRunners report for performance management software as accessed on 14th July, 2021.
2. Offer all the core features : goal setting and performance review administration and management.
3. Offer at least half of the common features: self-assessment, 360-degree feedback, continuous feedback and coaching, and performance reporting/analytics.
4. Must be a standalone performance management solution.

You can access the FrontRunner methodology here.