Best Continuous Performance Management Vehicle

Choosing Between an Expensive or Economical Continuous Performance Management Vehicle.  

‘The challenge companies often have today is not finding a great software vendor to do business with, it’s finding tools that employees will actually use! I’ve talked with reference customers from all the major vendors, and they tell me the same things: yes, the product is good and it does what we want, but honestly our employees just don’t use it that much, so we are looking for new tools that really help employees get their daily work done.’ – Josh Bersin, HR Technology Researcher, A New Wave of HR Technology Consolidation Begins

How Most Continuous Performance Management Vehicles Work (Expensive Sports Car)

Today, most Continuous Performance Management vehicles focus on integrating their tasks directly into the normal job workflow of managers and employees. Journaling and detailed tracking of progress against OKRs are examples of this deep integration. When fully embraced and utilized by managers and employees, these immersive activities maximize engagement with the Continuous Performance Management vehicle throughout the workday.

The problem is, in many industries and job functions, employees can’t access computers or smartphones to incorporate these tasks into their normal job workflow.¹ Even when computing technologies are accessible for all managers and employees, there’s a very high risk that the large cultural shift required for an organization to fully embrace these deeply integrated tasks will fail, and managers and employees won’t use these solutions as a result.² These solutions seek to maximize engagement, but the cost in terms of impact on job workflows is high.

Purchasing these solutions is expensive and risky. A short test drive is provided. After that, an annual contract with an entire year’s payments is required upfront to get started. Some solutions have a minimum price of $10,000/year or more, irrespective of the number of users. There are no refunds.

A good analogy for these solutions is an expensive sports car. While the vehicle can deliver excellent performance, few drivers have the skill or initiative to achieve it, so it’s rarely used.

A Different Approach to Continuous Performance Management Vehicle (Economical Crossover Sport Utility)

All other features are irrelevant if a solution isn’t used regularly by managers and employees. This is why SnapEval is focused on maximizing simplicity and ease-of-use with minimal impact on job workflow. SnapEval is designed to be the ‘go to’ solution for organizations that currently have a manual, ineffective, or non-existent performance management process.

‘Snapshots’ of performance management feedback can be captured instantly and shared in seconds. Employees aren’t required to have access to smartphones, computers, or even have email access to receive feedback.¹ Because the feedback snapshots are based on familiar concepts from classic annual reviews, the entire process is intuitive for both managers and employees. The cultural change to implement SnapEval is very small, so the risk of failure is minimal.²

The five guiding principles for SnapEval are:

1. Maximize simplicity and ease-of-use with minimal impact on job workflows. Most managers and employees won’t use solutions that are complex, difficult to use, or interfere with normal job workflows. All other features are irrelevant if the solution isn’t used regularly.
2. Maximize effectiveness consistent with principle #1. Enable actionable, goal/skill-aligned performance feedback to be captured instantly and shared when it’s most effective, with minimal impact on normal job workflows.
3. Provide comprehensive feedback visibility and control for HR Professionals. HR Professionals need to be able to proactively coach managers and supervisors when necessary. They also need to protect the organization from legal risk.
4. Minimize administrative tasks for managers and HR Professionals. Innovative design and automation are used to minimize administrative tasks.
5. Ultra-affordable solution (50% to 80% less than alternatives) with no commitments and zero risk. Value to the customer should always be maximized, price should never be an issue, and customers should never be ‘locked-in’ with contracts or commitments.

SnapEval is inexpensive and zero risk. Rather than offering a limited test drive, SnapEval is completely free for up to 10 users, with all features enabled and no time limitation. For more than 10 users, SnapEval is only $2.25/user/month, billed monthly based on the actual monthly enrollment. There’s no contract or long-term commitment of any kind, and no upfront payment or minimum price.

A good analogy for SnapEval is an economical Crossover Sport Utility Vehicle. It’s simple and easy to operate, so most drivers have the skill and initiative to achieve excellent performance with the vehicle. Best of all, while ‘sporty,’ its utility means that it’s used frequently!

So which Continuous Performance Management vehicle is the best fit for your organization, an Expensive Sports Car or an Economical Crossover SUV?

¹See Continuous Performance Management: It’s Not Just for Knowledge and Office Workers!

²See Changing to a New Performance Management System = High Risk!

I’m David Yeaple, VP of Business Development and Product Management at SnapEval, LLC. I’d love to get your feedback about this blog, our solutions, or anything else related to employee performance management. You can reach me at dyeaple@SnapEval.com or +1 585-414-5000.