11 Best Performance Management Software

A performance management software is a program that helps managers perform essential supervisory tasks. These include completing job profiles & descriptions, pending company-aligned goals & objectives, evaluating performance, and finishing appraisals.

Because of these functions, a performance management software promotes feedback, transparency, and recognition – vital elements for employee engagement. After all, they are given a preview of how they help contribute to meeting the organization’s goals.

How to Select the Best Performance Management Software

As the market is saturated with several performance management programs, it’s best if you made your decision based on the following factors:

1. Functions

The best performance management software should come with these essential features:

a. Coaching Management

This is the tool that helps managers create career plans, monitor training & assessments, keep the feedback, and organize reports. In some cases, programs allow for direct interaction between the supervisor and employee via chat.

b. Performance Appraisal Management

This feature allows weekly and monthly performance assessment, instead of the usual yearly appraisal. Such type of module permits organizations to have a central area for employee performance tracking and analysis. These reports can be viewed according to different appraisal periods (monthly, yearly, etc.)

c. Goal-Setting, Management and Alignment

These enable both supervisors and employees to create goals and evaluate their performances. Individually, this tool allows workers to update their status to determine if they are getting nearer to the benchmark. Additionally, this enables them to receive advice from managers as well.

d. Feedback Management

This gives a centralized area for employees and managers to update and share thoughts about performance metrics or goals.

e. Competency Management and Skill Assessment

This suite allows organizations to monitor certifications, skills exams, and licenses that are required locally and federally. Such is essential for evaluating the worker’s skills, which is useful for plan training or line succession.

f. Development Planning

As development planning is vital for employee engagement, this tool can help managers create long-term career planning for the workers.

g. Performance and Productivity Analytics

This feature helps tell companies that hard work is paying off. More so, performance and productivity analytics lump with productivity KPIs and performance metrics to help with better project planning.

h. Pay for Performance

This module allows companies to pay workers who met or exceeded beyond the prescribed goals.

i. Talent Profiles

Talent profiles provide the worker’s skills and proficiencies without the need to go through tedious reports. As such, this gives management teams a peak of employee info.  Apart from helping build job descriptions, and determining skill gaps, this tool also allows for succession planning.

j. Multi-Rater Feature

This aspect allows managers to provide multiple contexts regarding the employee’s performance, which is essential for completing 360 reviews. After all, this allows other team members to provide feedback – while reviewing the organization’s multiple capabilities.

k. Reporting and Analytics

This feature provides insight regarding the employee’s performance and the company’s involvement. The deep insights allow HR supervisors to conceptualize better initiatives.

2. Type

Performance management programs come in various styles. If you already have an HR solution but dislike your current performance management tool, then you should go for the best-of-breed software. This standalone system provides advanced functionality that works with your HR program. Of course, it’s important to see if this can be integrated with your existing tools.

However, if you’re looking to boost the entire talent management process, then go for an integrated suite. This allows you to craft a great system – or upgrade the spreadsheets you have at hand.

3. Organizational Size

As mentioned, performance management tools come with a bevy of functions. Some may be better suited for smaller companies, while some may work to the advantage of bigger companies. As such, you should make your decision according to the business size as well.

a. Small to Medium Businesses

It’s all about finding a scalable tool – something that grows together with you. After all, you still need to evaluate your objectives and growth projections as you expand your empire. With that being said, it’s useless to make upgrades if the tool doesn’t provide you with the scalability that you need.

b. Bigger Corporations

It’s essential to find performance management program that can be merged with your current HR or ERP programs. If not, the company will end up blowing a bigger budget than intended.

3. User-friendliness

You want something that employees and managers can use with relative ease. A complicated program will make the process harder, especially if the tools are quite confusing to use. At the same time, this could lead to a loss in productivity, as your employees need to spend a huge amount of time trying to learn the performance management system.

4. Support

While having an intuitive program is good, it doesn’t mean that you won’t meet drawbacks along the way. Unless you want your processes to take a standstill for a day, you will benefit a lot from a system that provides 24/7 support.

5. Mobile Capabilities

A mobile feature allows managers and workers to complete performance tasks outside the office. It also helps eases performance conversations, as individuals may be more comfortable in providing feedback through their phones.

The Best Performance Management Software

1. Engagedly Performance Management

Engagedly is a flexible performance management system that is holistic and people-focused. Usable for businesses with 50 to 5000 employees, Engagedly relies on best practices that enhance worker engagement.

With Engagedly, you get the following features:

• Flexible performance appraisalsthrough customized review cycles & templates. Managers are also allowed to create performance reports themselves.
• Goal alignment through the creation, assignment, and alignment of objectives. Access to goal information, collaboration, and periodic goal check-ins are available as well.
• Real-time feedback where users can access, oversee, and request comments/suggestions right away.
• 360 Reviewsthat are customizable, and as such are useful for identifying employee gaps and improving company culture.
• Employee check-ins that drive employee engagement through progress and problem monitoring.

Engagedly pricing is available upon request.

Pros

• Engagedly comes with a clean, streamlined layout.
• Users can try the system for free.
• The notes section allows users to customize Performance Review forms.
• The company provides excellent customer support for its clients

Cons

• Engagedly is not as intuitive as other performance management systems.
• The LMS system is not that robust.

2. AssessTeam

AssessTeam is a program that provides anything you need to analyze, evaluate, and boost employee performance. This cloud-based performance system offers the best value for money, and as such is recognized by many system reviewers.

The AssessTeam program has 6 core features:

• Employee evaluation. It’s simple and flexible, and also comes with useful performance monitoring. It also allows for timely inputs that are consistent with the newest trends. You can do new hire evaluation easily through the 30-60-90 method. With its productivity evaluation, the company is assured of better profitability.
• Employee engagement. With this, managers can make clear job descriptions, actionable inputs, and engaging reports.
• Goal setting. With this feature, employees can track certifications or competency milestones. Goal setting can be done according to team, job title, or individual.
• Project profitability. This measures employee hours and compares them to the budget for accurate profitability analysis. You can identify the least/most profitable programs, and work on the cause for decreasing profits. As such, it can help evolve the product to enhance profits.
• Continuous feedback. This allows managers to deploy inputs in minutes – sans the tedious setup. Through this feature, users get to enjoy digital collaboration, timely inputs, and seamless integration.
• 360-degree feedback.With this, employees are informed of their strengths, as well as their weaknesses, as both could affect performance efficiency. As such, it allows for wider participation and holistic analysis comparisons. Add to that, it allows for customized scheduling and comprehensive reporting.

AssessTeams’ monthly plans are priced according to 1-500 employees.

Pricing

• Basic: $1 per person
• Premium: $2 per person
• Enterprise: $3 per person

Pros

• The system’s plans are very affordable. They also come with unlimited evaluations, app integration, and 24/7 support.
• The program is accessible via an easy-to-use mobile app.
• Reviews and goal setting can be personalized depending on the needs of the user.
• AssessTeam offers a free trial for its Basic, Premium, and Enterprise plans.

Cons

• The AssessTeam software has some minor glitches.
• It’s quite complicated and laborious to create an employee review.

3. Profit

Profit offers an all-inclusive results platform for small businesses and large organizations.

Its features include:

• Performance management. With this HR dashboard, users can provide and receive 360-degree feedback and perform one-on-one meets. This comes with profit scoring and periodic reviews as well.
• OKR management includes OKRs by KPI, watched OKR, and step-by-step OKR creation. This comes with strategic alignment and corporate, team, department, & individual OKRs.
• Task management. With Profit, you can create, prioritize tasks, assign and associate tasks. Managers get to monitor team tasks, as well as visualize results via Kanban or list view.
• Employee engagement. Users are provided with an awards dashboard, rewards system, news feeds, and comments and reactions.

Profit’s performance management system can be integrated with several suites, including Jira, Slack, GSuite, Gmail, Office 365, Zapier, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, and Google Sheets.

Apart from the free Startup account, Profit also offers a Growth plan that costs $7 per user, per month if billed annually. The Enterprise plan, on the other hand, is priced according to request.

Pros

• Profit is easy to use. You can see whatever you need to see on the dashboard.
• It offers a free demo for interested parties.
• Profit has a free account (Startup) for 1 user.
• A lot of customizations can be done with the help of Profit’s setup team.

Cons

Setup is not as intuitive as other performance management systems.

4. PeopleGoal

PeopleGoal is a configurable and customizable performance management program. As a cloud-based platform, it can engage employees through news, surveys, recognition, and rewards.

It can help simplify workaday HR tasks with the help of the following features:

• Performance Management. PeopleGoal has a continuous performance management software for performance tracking, goal alignment, employee recognition, and continuous appraisal. It also comes with a Talent Management System for strategic alignment, collaborative working, communication, and employee productivity.
• There’s a software for high-performing teams and a manager app for increasing employee engagement.
• This feature can help you align, track, and report through objectives and key results.
• 360-degree feedback.This aspect provides continuous development and growth insights to both employees and managers.
• While PeopleGoal is very easy to use, the platform has several resources available for training and onboarding.

PeopleGoal’s Professional plan costs $7 per user, per month. The Enterprise package, on the other hand, has pricing based on an annual contract.

Pros

• The user interface is very intuitive.
• There are no minimum annual fees.
• Discounts are readily available for annual contracts.
• PeopleGoal offers a free 14-day trial of the system.

Cons

• Small organizations will find it hard to make some customizations in this program.
• Customer support is slower to respond, in comparison to other programs.

5. OfficeKit

OfficeKit is a customizable talent management solution that makes tedious HR activities easy.

It comes with all the benefits you could ever ask from a performance management tool:

• Hiring and Onboardingfeatures, including applicant tracking, talent acquisition, and talent onboarding
• HRIS toolssuch as profile management, doc management, recognitions & rewards, training, travel, workflows, even a self-service employee program
• Payroll featuresincluding unlimited pay configurations, retro salary & arrears computations, flexible salary scheduling & configurations, single-click payroll process, reimbursements, claims & final settlement integrations, loans & advances, and compliance management
• Time & Absence Trackingtools such as attendance, leave, & shift management, geo-tagging attendance, and biometric integrations
• Performance & Talent measures such as talent appraisal, monitoring & review, goal planning, and ongoing coaching and feedback

OfficeKit also features a mobile app that allows for communications, analytics, geo-location tracking, and query building.

The OfficeKit plans, which cover 50 employees, are priced as follows:

• Bronze program: $100 a month
• Silver program: $150 a month
• Gold: $250 a month

Add-ons include an applicant tracking system ($60 per user, per month), a performance management system, and travel management system ($3 per service, per employee monthly).

Pros

• Easy to set up and learn.
• OfficeKit promises the shortest implementation time amongst many other performance management systems.
• It comes with a mobile app that’s very easy to use.
• The customer support given is very impressive.
• OfficeKit has a worldwide presence as it is being utilized in more than 20+ locations.

Cons

The travel module is incompatible with Galilio.

6. Impraise

Impraise was launched in 2014 to help redesign performance reviews. Ever since then, the company has made solutions for improving performance management and enhancing career development.

Its people-enablement platform allows you to make actionable OKRs. By measuring real progress, it can keep your business agile as well. It allows for workflow embedding, which maintains goal priority.

As for reviews, Impraise provides several options. These include performance reviews, 360 reviews, engagement surveys, leadership reviews, self-assessments, even custom templates.

There’s also real-time feedback, so you can engage in development and recognize a job well done. At the same time, it can help managers turn into more supportive employee coaches.

Should you want to measure the projects’ impacts on morale, you can take hold of Impraise’s pulse and engagement surveys. As you can see the progress, you can identify opportunities for maximum results.

With Impraise, you can focus on collaborative 1:1 meetings as well. With a dedicated space, managers and employees get to collaborate on agendas and track metrics together.

Want to know if the team is working on the right things? Then you will benefit a lot from Impraise’s check-ins. This allows you to align teams, so you can set clear goals, organize thoughts, and foster better conversations.

Equipped with insights and analytics, managers get to make better decisions. At the same time, these metrics drive employee engagement – an important factor for better productivity.

While you can do all of these at work, Impraise’s mobile app allows you to do so on the go. Now, you can do every performance management activity on demand.

The Performance is priced $6 per person, per month, while the Performance, Alignment, & Engagement plan costs $8. The Enterprise plan, on the other hand, has a price that’s customized according to user needs.

Pros

• The platform is user-friendly, and as such makes talent onboarding very easy.
• The system can be used seamlessly with other platforms such as Slack.
• You can get hold of customer service reps through ‘chat’ rather quickly.
• Impraise offers a product demo.

Cons

• Questions cannot be adjusted according to the review order.
• Users cannot copy “Impraises” that were sent before.

7. BizMerlin HR

BizMerlin HR is a performance management software specially made for mid to large companies. It is a configurable and AI-powered open API platform. With its robust data integrations, you can support your team – even if they’re on the other part of the globe.

Here’s how BizMerlin HR can help you with all the important parts of the employment process:

• BizMerlin HR enables seamless collaboration through job portal integrations, position management, candidate tracking, and a public job board.
• It helps provide a stellar experience for new workers with its customizable checklists and workflows.
• Employee Records. As this is the backbone of workforce management, this feature enhances user productivity while maintaining compliance with local and state regulations.
• Time & Attendance. You can track your employees’ times with accuracy through BizMerlin HR’s desktop and mobile applications. You can even configure leaves and PTO policies as necessary.
• Performance Management.Apart from creating goals, OKRs, and APIs, managers can do one-on-one checks and provide 360-degree feedback.
• Learning & Development for consistent employee training.
• Workforce Planning. This AI-powered feature provides insights into workforce placement. It even allows for optimization through employee skills.
• Career Planning. This feature provides aspects such as career pathways, job profile repositories, and succession planning.

BizMerlin HR also boasts of robust app integrations, and as such could be used efficiently with LinkedIn, Facebook, Indeed, and Salesforce, to name a few.

Pricing information is only available upon request.

Pros

• BizMerlin HR can help ease employee hiring and tracking.
• The program can be used well with over 100+ apps.
• BizMerlin HR is available in 15 languages in 160 countries.
• It offers a free trial for 14 days. No need to provide your credit card info.

Cons

• The text search filter doesn’t work well.
• It doesn’t allow for the creation of training resources.

8. Paylocity

Despite its’ name, Paylocity goes beyond just payroll services. After all, this web-based HR provider has everything you need when it comes to workforce management, talent, engagement, benefits, and more.

Here are some of the aspects that make Paylocity special:

• Talent Management. You can boost your workforce through Paylocity’s recruiting and onboarding features. This tool also comes with performance, compensation, and learning management systems.
• Human Resources. You can streamline processes through its employee self-service portal, compliance courses, professional HR tools, and data analytics and metrics. It also comes with employee action forms, customized checklists, editable templates, dynamic reports, and position management.
• Workforce Management. You can maximize team productivity with Paylocity’s time tracking, attendance points, employee scheduling, and report dashboard. Other notable features include geofencing parameters and time-clock kiosks.
• Paylocity makes sure that your workers are seen and heard. This can be done through surveys, community forums, and peer recognition.
• True to its’ name, Paylocity makes payroll tasks easier with its garnishment managed services, on-demand payment, expense management, and tax features.
• Through flexible benefits and benefits administration, Paylocity can help you make very attractive financial packages.
• Paylocity allows you to integrate with 300+ programs spread across 20 categories.

Paylocity doesn’t have its prices published, but most users peg it to be at $2 to $4 per user, per month.

Pros

• The Paylocity program is very easy to use.
• The software can be personalized as needed.
• It has one of the most integration offers at 300+ tools.
• Paylocity makes report writing easy and customizable.

Cons

• Some people find the interface a little bit confusing.
• Customer support has room for improvement.

9. HRWeb

HRWeb is an online solution for HR process automation.

It has 6 core features, which are:

• Time and Attendance. Employees can clock in and out of any device. Managers, on the other hand, can approve or deny requests at the soonest time possible.
• Performance Management.You can measure employee performance automatically, analyze their progress, and create usable reports.
• Applicant Tracking. You can track, manage, and locate the best employees to join your organization.
• You don’t have to drown in paperwork anymore. With this productive start, you are assured of better employee retention.
• Employee Tracking.This HR module covers full benefits administration, compensation management, and EEOC reports, among many others.
• Data Integration. HRWeb is compatible with ADP, Zip Recruiter, and Intuit Quickbooks.

HRWeb pricing is according to how many employees will be enrolled. For a group of 10, you have to pay $39.95 a month. For 500 employees, the cost is $499.95 a month. This is outside of additional services such as project tracking, and time tracking & scheduling.

Pros

• The program is web-based. It’s also very easy to use.
• It has a state-of-the-art report card function.
• It’s effortless to move around the system’s different features.
• Customer service reps respond efficiently.

Cons

• Implementation can be quite difficult.
• Reports can benefit from an aesthetic boost.

10. Zoho People

Zoho People is a cloud-based HRM system. As this helps take care of the usual HR processes, Zoho People can help pave the way towards a ‘happier’ workforce.

Its HR Essentials include employee database management, self-service, payroll integration, time-off management, document management, and e-signatures.

As for HRMS, you can work on a variety of tools such as employee onboarding, attendance tracking, shift scheduling, timesheets, corporate LMS, performance management, case management, expense integration, and GPS and mobile attendance.

Zoho People also comes with HR process automation, customization and HR advanced analytics.

Pricing

This performance management system’s pricing plans are on a per-user, per-month basis:

• Free: $0
• Essential HR: 83 cents
• Professional: $1.66
• Premium: $2.50
• Enterprise: $4.16
• People plus: $8

Zoho People also offers a corporate edition of Zoho Recruit, which costs $540 a year per recruiter.

Pros

• Zoho People has a free plan that covers 5 users.
• The system’s price plans are very affordable.
• The company promises utmost data security with its 24/7 security monitoring, biometric access, among many other safety systems.
• Zoho offers a free trial for 15 days, a day more than its competitors.

Cons

• The timesheets can be hard to configure with the payroll cycle.
• Zoho People’s mobile app is a wee bit buggy.

11. CRG emPerform

CRG emPerform is an employee performance management software that can help create a high-quality workforce.

This simple yet all-inclusive tool comes with the following features:

• Performance Reviews. You can streamline such reports as you can evaluate your workers based on any type of criteria. You can also view past reports, as well as provide performance feedback.
• Goal Management. Here, you can define company goals and cascade them to teams. You can also accomplish goal check-ins and update these goals as needed.
• 360-Degree Reviews. CRG emPerform allows you to integrate the reviews directly into the forms. Vital info can also be shared with both the employer and the employee.
• Ongoing Feedback.You can add notes and send feedback whenever necessary. This enables you to engage in performance discussions with relative ease.
• Succession Planning. You can determine key talent by comparing performances and results, which can help you identify the future leaders of the company.
• Compensation Management. This allows you to set compensation & budgets, set ranges & recommendations, as well as prorate salary decisions.
• It’s easier to improve performance management with CRG emPerform’s unlimited online surveys. Here, you can create employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and pulse surveys, among many others.
• Reporting & Analytics. The program allows you to identify training gaps for better decision making.

CRG emPerform costs about $4.99 per user on a monthly basis.

Pros

• The on-site implementation experts will make the implementation process a whole lot easier.
• CRG emPerform is very intuitive. New users will find it effortless to use.
• The company has very courteous and helpful reps.

Cons

• You can only have one library per section.
• Logging in can be quite difficult.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

A performance management software is a tool that helps companies analyze employee performance and productivity. The software allows easy tracking, analysis, and evaluation so that goals are met efficiently.

When selecting a performance management software, buyers should be mindful of the basic functions. It should include coaching management, performance appraisal, goal-setting, feedback management, and development planning, among many others. Other factors to consider include the type of system, the organizational size, and the program’s mobile capabilities.