The annual performance review is only a small part of true performance management.Rather, it should be a continuous process with regular check-ins between managers and their teams, which leads to improved feedback, coaching, and, hopefully, performance.
Effective performance management takes time and performance, but there are a management of tools available to assist you at the individual, team, and organisational levels.
Criteria for Comparing Performance Management Tools
What should we look for while evaluating performance management tools? The following is a list of my evaluation criteria:
Is the user interface (UI) neat and appealing? Is it simple to understand and master? Is there good tech assistance, user help, tutorials, and training at the company?
Functionality and features:
Review and Feedback – Are there any evaluation templates that may be used to speed up the review process? Is the employee performance evaluation flexible and engaging? Is there a method to draw favourable attention to exceptional performance?
Training and eLearning- Does the software allow you to build and implement employee training/eLearning courses? Is it simple to create content? Are there any courses included with the software?
Is the programme capable of creating and executing improvement plans? Is there a set of templates available?
Reporting and analytics — How robust, adaptable, versatile, and visually appealing are the reporting tools? Can they be utilised to deliver useful performance indicators to employees?
Is it simple to integrate with other tools? Do you have any pre-built integrations?
Value for money: Is the price reasonable given the features, capabilities, and use case?
Is your price straightforward, transparent, and flexible?
The 10 Best Performance Management Tools: An Overview
Continue reading for an overview of each of the top performance management tools on this list. I’ll go over their advantages and disadvantages, as well as general features and cost.
1. 15Five – Best overall performance management solution
15Five is a performance management solution that enables HR directors to play a strategic role in the growth of their organisations. 15Five integrates engagement surveys, performance assessments, OKRs, and a suite of additional people development tools into a single platform to enable strategic decision-making and execution. Unlike traditional ‘command and control’ performance systems, 15Five employs the most recent advances in human psychology to transform managers and employees into self-driven owners of performance and engagement. 15Five also delivers education, coaching, and community resources for HR leaders, managers, and employees to further the influence of talent on organisational growth. 15Five’s software and services are used by over 3,200 firms, including Credit Karma, Spotify, and Pendo, for performance management and people development.
15Five works with a variety of HRIS platforms, such as BambooHR, Workday, and ADP, as well as productivity tools like Slack, Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams, and Jira. 15Five has a 14-day free trial and charges $4 per user per month. They also accept payments on a monthly or annual basis.
2. monday.com – Best for gathering performance management feedback via integrated forms
Monday.com is primarily marketed as a workflow tool for growing businesses, but it also includes a number of HR capabilities, including some for performance management. It’s not really an HR tool, but it does cover a lot of the essentials.
Monday.com’s performance management tools include the ability to create and send surveys, assessments, and quizzes to employees. It also has built-in forms that may be used for anything in your company, but are particularly valuable in performance management for gathering data on employee progress, opinions, and other types of employee feedback.
Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform, and other project management software are among the integrations available under a subscription Zapier membership.
3. Leapsome – Best for employee development-oriented performance management
Leapsome is a performance management and employee engagement solution that helps businesses improve their management procedures. Leapsome, which has been chosen by firms such as Spotify, Northvolt, and Babbel, offers a continuous cycle of performance management and tailored learning that propels your people and business forward.
360-reviews are completely customisable and simple to set up. Anonymous/non-anonymous feedback, expert templates, skill frameworks, development routes, automations, and advanced analytics are some of the highlights. OKRs & goals is a module in Leapsome that allows you manage objectives at a company, team, or individual level. The tool lets you connect the large picture to the small details utilising configurable metrics, easy visualisation of dependencies and goal progress, and goal trees, thanks to its ease of use and intuitive visualisations.
Employee engagement surveys from Leapsome can help you identify engagement factors and track employee satisfaction over time. The tool lets you turn corporate emotion into action, whether through unique questions or Leapsome’s expert templates. Customizable questions, frequency, and participation; department and performance segmentation; and automatic analytics are all key aspects.
Leapsome also provides meeting management services to help you run productive one-on-one or team meetings with each individual in your company, guided by a well-structured agenda and talking points.
Personio, BambooHR, HiBob, Workday, Rippling, PayFit, ADP, Active Directory, SFTP Integrations, Slack, Jira, Microsoft Teams, calendar applications, and Single Sign-On are all integrated with Leapsome (SSO).
4. Trakstar – Best for deep customization options
Trakstar is for businesses looking for comprehensive performance appraisal and staff engagement software with an easy-to-use interface that resembles some of today’s social networking sites.
Trakstar helps you manage hundreds or thousands of employees’ performance reviews, employee engagement surveys, 360-degree/multi-rater feedback, and goals. To match the demands of your organisation, you may also construct bespoke appraisal forms, define SMART targets, and create flexible workflow procedures.
Trakstar makes up for its lack of third-party integration support with its usability and UI.
Trakstar is a simple performance management solution that eliminates the clutter. With their volume-discount pricing model, they can accommodate both SMBs and businesses.
Google Workspace, Okta, and OneLogin are all integrated with Trakstar.Trakstar starts at $4370 per year and is dependant on the number of employees at your company. On request, they provide a free live demo.
5. intelliHR – Best continuous performance management with people analytics
IntelliHR is a continuous performance management and analytics platform designed to help companies centralise performance management, employee engagement, and people data analytics. HR and managers may use intelliHR’s best-practice performance tools to align, manage, and support a people and culture strategy that will increase employee engagement and performance.
Organizations can use intelliHR to automate performance review cycles, cascade corporate goals, and boost long-term performance. Performance improvement plans, streamlined check-in records, and automated performance reports are all saved on each team member’s profile, ensuring that they are not lost or forgotten during their next review. The performance tools provided by intelliHR help to eliminate recency bias, manager burden, and assure more satisfied review completions.
Performance analytics is another standout feature, which captures real-time data via features like goals, feedback, and check-ins. Without creating a single excel report, leaders may use performance analytics to identify great performers and support those who want assistance.
With an award-winning customer support team with experience in HR and change management, intelliHR has an industry-leading NPS of 61. To ensure that the product is released smoothly and with a high adoption rate, the team uses design thinking workshops specific to each customer.
6. Inspire – Best integrated continuous performance management
Inspire Software combines OKRs, complete recognition and feedback capabilities, learning, and leadership development with continuous performance management features and methodology. With connectors that employees are already using, Inspire Software connects the strategy to practical procedures like goals, OKRs, and feedback.
You can utilise built-in collaboration, feedback, and recognition capabilities to conduct goal-driven 1:1 dialogues that solve actual needs in real time, so your teams can plan and stay focused on what’s important, and then celebrate their achievement all in one location.
Formal performance management features, such as configurable templates and headers, grading, and more, can be tailored to your needs. They also provide a free software orientation or “guided trial” that includes various how-to videos. On request, longer pilots or trials are available.
Workday, ADP, and other HRIS tools, as well as productivity tools like Slack, Microsoft Office, Google, JIRA, and your CRM, are all integrated by Inspire Software.
7. Profit.co – Best agile performance management software
Profit.co’s performance management software (PMS) harnesses the power of OKRs to facilitate unbiased performance evaluations and match employee development goals with business goals. Continuous performance management allows for a flexible review cycle, which can be annual, half-yearly, quarterly, or even project-based.
Profit.co uses affinity-based ratings and a 9-box matrix evaluation to provide employees a 360-degree appraisal. Performance calibration, staff engagement, CFR, individual development plans, and performance improvement plans are among the other major elements that make it a full Agile PMS platform for businesses of any size.
Profit.co is best suited for businesses searching for a simple alternative for their current PMS and those who already use the notion of OKRs. Managers can use a step-by-step bespoke OKR creation process for creating corporate, departmental, team, and individual goals. Each review cycle’s self-reviews and 1-on-1s with team leads will have a solid foundation for performance measurement.
Slack, Microsoft Teams, Gmail & Google Workspace, MS Excel, JIRA, Monday.com, Salesforce, Azure DevOps, Tableau, Favro, Snowflake, My SQL, Google Big Query, Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Okta, and Bamboo HR are among the apps Profit.co interacts with.
Additionally, Zapier offers a premium plan that unlocks connections.
8. Kazoo – Best for employee growth plans
Whether you utilise OKR, SMART, FAST, or other techniques, Kazoo’s continuous performance management system allows you to define, align, and update targets. You may track goal progress and risk status, as well as conduct performance reviews, on Kazoo.
You may also use Kazoo to arrange one-on-one performance chats, regular check-ins, and seek and give feedback using pre-built templates and questionnaires. This information is saved and synced by Kazoo for future performance reviews.
BambooHR, Rippling, Speakap, and Verb are all integrated with Kazoo. Their API and SFTP provide access to other integrations.
9. eloomi – Best for performance appraisal goals and feedback culture
The performance management system from eloomi is a simple and easy-to-use platform that enables companies all over the world assist their employees’ development. With features like evaluation targets, pre-made templates, targeted objectives, ongoing feedback, operational checklists, and automatic reports/insights, the platform empowers team leaders to develop a fantastic performance culture. The platform is completely customisable, allowing businesses to design a digital tool that exactly fits their brand.
Setting visible strategic goals, accessing historical data, and having performance discussions focused on employee individual development are all possible with eloomi. Managers and platform administrators may receive a complete picture of their employees’ progress and have meaningful dialogues with them to help them.
Users can utilise eloomi to gain unbiased feedback and a detailed picture of their performance and potential. In this way, eloomi helps people grow by providing a clear talent critique that can be used to make future improvements. Managers can help their teams by implementing a personal development plan, improving 1-on-1s, and holding coaching sessions.
My360+ can help you improve your company’s feedback culture, and eloomi LMS can help you engage employees with exciting material and unique learning modules.
10. Kallidus – Best user-friendly continuous performance reviews
Kallidus Perform is a year-round performance management application that allows managers and team members to check in, provide feedback, and measure progress. Team leaders have the flexibility to change objectives and schedule short conversations as needed. Perform, which is used by companies including JYSK, Co-op, Tesco, and DHL, was created to make the employee appraisal process more accessible and hence more likely to produce results.
Kallidus Perform’s user interface is built to fit the needs of today’s organisations and the new world of work, allowing for check-ins and reviews at any time and from any location. Traditional paper-based appraisal systems can be swiftly and totally replaced with Perform, saving money, time, and improving security.
Flexible targets, frequent feedback, collaborative tools, coaching solutions, a management dashboard, and configurable notifications are all components of Kallidus Perform. Other Kallidus tools for HRIS, recruitment, learning management, talent and succession planning, and BI reporting are also integrated.
