10 Best Employee Evaluation Software Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
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With so many different employee evaluation software available, figuring out which is right for your company is tough. You want to solicit meaningful feedback, track goal progress, and measure employee development, but you need to figure out which tool is best. In this post, I'll help you make this choice easier by sharing my insights on the top employee evaluation software based on my personal experience preparing over 1,000 employee performance reviews.
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The 10 Best Employee Evaluation Software Comparison Chart
Here’s a comparison chart that summarizes basic details about each of my top employee evaluation software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best software for your budget and business needs.
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Trakstar | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Performance Pro | From $2 to $7/employee/month | Website |
| PerformYard | From $5-$10/user/month | Website |
| SurveySparrow | From $19/month | Website |
| Leapsome | From $8/user/month | Website |
| ClearCompany | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Lattice | From $11/user/month | Website |
| Trinet | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Peoplebox | From $7/user/month | Website |
| Primalogik | From $159/month for up to 25 users | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareHow to Choose a Performance Management Tool
As you work through your own unique tool selection process, keep the following points in mind:
- What problem are you trying to solve - Start by identifying the challenges you're trying to overcome. This will help you clarify the features and functionality the performance management software needs to provide.
- Who will need to use it - To evaluate cost and requirements, consider who will use the tool and how many licenses you'll need. For employee evaluation software, you'll likely want employee-level access for your entire workforce, with special access for your HR administrators and managers. Once that's clear, it's also useful to rank the needs of your different users to identify the key priorities for your power users, managers, and employees, to ensure they're all met.
- What other tools it needs to work with - Clarify what tools you're replacing, what tools are staying, and the tools you'll need to integrate with, such as learning management systems, training management software, or feedback collection tools. You'll need to decide if the tools will need to integrate together, or alternatively, if you can replace multiple tools with an all-in-one employee evaluation software.
- What outcomes are important - Review the capabilities you want to gain or improve, and how you will measure success. For example, you may want a tool to automate portions of the employee evaluation process, so nothing slips through the cracks. You could compare tool features until you’re blue in the face but if you aren’t thinking about the outcomes you want to achieve, you could waste a lot of valuable time.
- How it would work within your organization - Consider the tool selection alongside your existing workflows and systems. Evaluate what's working well, and the areas that are causing issues that need to be addressed.
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Overviews of the 10 Best Employee Evaluation Software
Here’s a brief description of each employee evaluation solution that made it into my top 10 list. I’ve highlighted each tool’s best use case, and noteworthy features, and included a screenshot for each to give you a snapshot of their user interface. Plus, there are 10 additional bonus options below if you’d like even more choices to consider:
Trakstar
Best employee evaluation software for goal progression assessments
Trakstar is a flexible performance management system that helps you keep your employees on track with goals and continuous feedback. It offers evaluation templates, automated workflows, and configurable forms to help you get your performance management program up and running fast.
Why I picked Trakstar: Trakstar’s data analytics allow managers to analyze performance trends and identify areas for improvement. Managers can examine an employee's progress in various areas, including skills development, project management, and overall task completion, and compare that progress against those in the same role or department.
You can also use Trakstar to set SMART goals for your employees and your team as a whole, and track progress over time. The goal section has a timeline, so each individual gets a visual representation of how their progress is going.
Trakstar Standout Features and Integrations:
With Trakstar, sending and receiving reviews is easy. You can tie certain goals to reviews, add and share goal-related notes, and you can set up notifications to complete evaluations. Team managers receive reports on how their team is doing, and they can set up their dashboard to track department and team member goals at a glance.
The feedback collection process is also easy with Trakstar. The software gives managers multiple survey options, so they can weigh different aspects of their team’s performance. It also includes the ability to collect multi-rater feedback from a group of close colleagues (also called 360-degree feedback), as well as an employee self-assessment feature that allows employees to evaluate their own performance before they meet with their manager.
Integrations are available with Google Workspace, Okta, and OneLogin.
Performance Pro is an employee evaluation tool for small to mid-sized organizations that helps managers and employees set goals and monitor individual competencies as part of the performance appraisal process.
Why I picked Performance Pro: I included Performance Pro in this list because of its affordability, and the customization it offers to fit various business needs. What makes it different is its straightforward implementation process, the support provided by customer service, and the personalized dashboards that allow for effective tracking and reporting of employee progress.
It's best suited for mid-sized company HR management as it is specifically designed and priced with small to mid-sized companies in mind, offering practical tools for performance management and compensation management, while also focusing on continuous improvement to support workforce success.
Performance Pro Standout Features and Integrations:
Key features include tools for setting goals, conducting performance reviews, and evaluating competencies, including 360-degree feedback and development planning. I also appreciate the link between goals, performance, and merit-based salary increases which helps motivate employees to reach and exceed their goals. The platform also provides a comprehensive library of competencies and job descriptions, along with capabilities for tracking and reporting on performance metrics.
An integration is available with Compease to help with merit-based compensation increases and planning. Integrations are also available with HCM or payroll software, though specific platforms are not named.
PerformYard's employee evaluation software provides flexible features for HR, while creating a simplified employee performance review experience for your staff.
Why I picked PerformYard: With PerformYard, your HR team will get the tools they need to build out any employee evaluation strategy, and employees get a streamlined experience so they can focus on quality feedback and effective performance discussions. It doesn't try to insert itself at every opportunity or replace important conversations.
In addition to your annual performance review cycle, PerformYard can also help you run regular check-in meetings, capture continuous feedback, recognize staff achievements, and document employee goals.
PerformYard Standout Features and Integrations:
PerformYard focuses on providing a flexible employee evaluation solution. You can customize the software to fit the strategy that's right for your organization, including 360-degree reviews, project-based reviews, rating scales, continuous feedback, and cascading goals.
Another highlight is the fact that PerformYard provides dedicated customer success managers for every customer, to help you design an effective performance management cycle tailored to your own unique business needs. From onboarding, to employee training, to ongoing support you'll have someone at your side to help you troubleshoot any issues.
Integrations are available with most major HRIS and payroll systems including ADP, BambooHR, Gusto, Rippling, UKG, Paycom, Workday, and Paylocity.
Best employee evaluation software for 360-degree performance reviews
SurveySparrow is an online survey and customer experience platform with a suite of tools aimed at helping businesses excel, including 360 assessments for employee performance reviews.
Why I picked SurveySparrow: As an employee evaluation software, SurveySparrow provides comprehensive features crucial for conducting omnidirectional employee assessments. Its standout capabilities include customizable 360 reports, competency summaries, and gap analysis. It also offers customizable personal development plans to help employees reach their goals.
Additionally, SurveySparrow's ability to monitor the progress of assessments and provide dedicated employee portals makes it a robust solution for managing employee evaluations. Overall, this tool is suitable for a wide range of company sizes across various industries.
SurveySparrow Standout Features and Integrations:
Key features include tools that help identify hidden strengths and blind spots for employee growth and improvement. The software also offers offline feedback collection, multilingual surveys, data and analytics, and a comprehensive management dashboard to track your team's metrics.
Additionally, SurveySparrow has automated workflows. Employee surveys can be scheduled and sent automatically based on specific timelines or triggers. This is particularly useful for periodic reviews, such as quarterly or annual evaluations.
Integrations include MailChimp, Zapier, Google Tag Manager, HubSpot, Intercom, Salesforce, Slack, Stripe, Google Analytics, Karbon, Freshdesk, and more.
Leapsome
Best for closing the loop between performance, engagement, and learning
Leapsome is the all-in-one employee evaluation platform that helps organizations enhance their management processes. Used by companies like Spotify, Workato, and monday.com, Leapsome enables a continuous cycle of performance management and personalized learning that powers the growth of your people and business.
Why I picked Leapsome: To further enhance your set of employee evaluation tools, Leapsome also includes employee engagement surveys that identify drivers and measure your employees’ satisfaction over time. Whether through custom questions or Leapsome’s expert templates, the tool helps you turn company sentiment into action items. Key highlights of this feature include customizable frequency and questions, the ability to segment surveys by department, performance, and more, as well as automated survey analytics.
Leapsome Standout Features and Integrations:
Their performance review cycles are fully customizable and easy to set up and can be scheduled to automatically recur at predetermined timelines (e.g., quarterly, semi-annually, annually, or even for closing off probationary periods).
Other key features include 360-degree feedback (including anonymous feedback), expert question templates, skill frameworks, development paths, automations, and powerful analytics. Leapsome also includes an OKR module to help manage goals and objectives at the company, team, and individual levels, as well as helpful visuals like goal trees that help you connect the big picture to the tiny details.
Lastly, for any employees needing upskilling, Leapsome includes the tools teams need to create customized learning paths for training and employee development, built around specific teams, skill sets, or topics.
Integrations are available with Active Directory, ADP, BambooHR, GSuite, HiBob, Jira, Microsoft Teams, PayFit, Personio, Rippling, Slack, and others.
Best employee evaluation software for performance and engagement tracking
ClearCompany is a end-to-end HR management platform designed to facilitate the entire performance review and recognition process by using modern tools, features, and automation.
Why I picked ClearCompany: The software is equipped with a 360-degree feedback feature that enables users within the organization to easily and anonymously share their feedback about their peers, superiors, and subordinates. Managers and executives are equipped with comprehensive performance metrics that offer insights on an individual employees’ core strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement. It also helps managers identify both top performers and underperformers, so they can be recognized or developed.
ClearCompany Standout Features and Integrations:
Their user-friendly employee evaluation software allows you to set up performance reviews with different approaches, from free-form responses and weighted sections to custom scoring tables. You can also take advantage of their pre-built templates, or build new templates from scratch.
Other features in their employee performance reviews module include 360-degree feedback, scheduling automation, goal setting with complete progress tracking capabilities, and data-rich analytics and reporting.
Integrations are available with various solutions for assessment tests, calendars, background-checking tools, and HRIS systems including ADP, Absorb, AccuTrace, BambooHR, Checkr, eSkill, GrowthPlay, Office 365, Okta, OneLogin, Predictive Index, Ping Identity, Skill Check, Wonderlic, and others.
Lattice
Best employee evaluation software for consistent 360-degree feedback
Lattice is a people management platform that helps you set up goals, run surveys, track employee performance, and reward high-performing individuals.
The platform keeps all your data well organized, so you can find the information you need without difficulty. Lattice offers an extensive question library and you can also include custom questions in your surveys.
Why I picked Lattice: One of the best things about this software is that it makes it easy to schedule and distribute surveys and performance reviews. Lattice prompts employees to leave feedback, and you can set it up to ask about your team’s mood, concerns, achievements, and other criteria that are relevant to your business. The automatic prompting feature makes it very easy to collect 360-degree feedback.
Lattice Standout Features and Integrations:
In addition to traditional performance reviews, you can also use Lattice to schedule and run pulse surveys, objectives and key results (OKR) reviews, and one-on-one interviews. The platform’s 1:1s are easy to manage by both team leaders and employees, and you can connect your other surveys and reviews to the 1:1 meeting agenda so they can serve as talking points or reminders.
Managers can also compare multiple reviews to assess performance from multiple angles, and quickly track progress at a glance to see how personal goals align with those of the company. Lattice also includes tools for praising high-performing individuals in public or private and helps managers discover growth opportunities for their team members.
Integrations are available natively with hundreds of solutions, including BambooHR, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Okta, Slack, and Zenefits.
Trinet is an HR software and service provider that can help organizations manage their core HR needs. The software can handle the full scope of the employee experience from applicant tracking through hiring and onboarding, and employee performance and learning management. It can also be used to manage payroll and benefits administration, and provides workforce analytics.
Why I picked Trinet: The performance management component of the platform allows managers to set individual goals with employees that correspond to broader company objectives. Real-time feedback can be collected through the software, which can then be referenced during performance reviews. Pre-built templates are available to structure performance evaluations, or users can opt to create their own.
Trinet Standout Features and Integrations:
Trinet's HR system includes numerous pre-loaded templates that you can customize to get your review cycle up and running quickly. It also includes visualization tools to help employees and managers monitor their progress and spot potential areas for improvement.
In addition to software, the company also provides HR-related services to help with things like compliance and risk management. For smaller teams, this can be a helpful resource to ensure you're operating according to relevant laws and standards. Even for larger companies, having that backup can be a welcome protection to keep your operations up-to-date.
Integrations are available with Assembly, Bob, ChartHop, Compt, Greenhouse, Hyperproof, Lattice, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks, and many others.
Peoplebox is an employee evaluation software backed by Y-combinator that makes it super-easy for HR leaders to identify, reward and retain top performers and make compensation decisions that are aligned with business success.
Why I picked PeopleBox: It provides a single platform for both HR and business leaders to drive better team performance, retention and execution through better ways to do performance reviews, aligned goals (OKRs), 1:1s, surveys, compensation, KPIs, initiative management and strategic meetings.
Peoplebox emphasizes the importance of regular feedback and communication to foster employee growth and development. As such, it provides features that enable managers and HR professionals to easily conduct performance reviews, set goals, and track progress. The software also facilitates ongoing feedback and communication between managers and employees, allowing for regular check-ins and one-on-one meetings.
Peoplebox Standout Features and Integrations:
Peoplebox offers a centralized platform for organizing and documenting evaluation data, making it easier for managers to assess employee performance and provide constructive feedback. It also provides centralized goal-setting and tracking, allowing employees and managers to create and manage goals together.
Managers and employees can also set up automatic scheduling scheduling for one-on-one meetings in order to make setting up and attending a meeting as easy as possible. Peoplebox even allows users to conduct performance reviews via Slack so that employees do not need to download another tool just to receive feedback.
The tool additionally provides analytics and insights to help organizations gain a deeper understanding of employee performance trends and identify areas for improvement.
Integrations include MS Teams, Salesforce, Jira, Asana, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Notion, Bamboo HR, Tableau, GitHub, and Slack. Unlike other tools, its integration with Slack/Teams goes beyond notifications and lets you do entire performance reviews, engagement surveys, and OKR check-ins right within Slack/Teams.
Primalogik
Best for advanced benchmarking and performance comparison tools
Primalogik is an employee evaluation software founded in 2012 that is known for product simplicity and customer-centricity. Primalogik’s employee performance management software includes a wide range of features that foster employee engagement and empower managers and their employees to reach their full potential.
Why I picked Primalogik: Through a combination of performance review assessments, 360-degree feedback, engagement surveys, employee goals and OKRs, and instant feedback including 1:1 check-ins, Primalogik helps employees gain insight into their individual performance and uncover areas to make improvements.
Once employee feedback is in the system, Primalogik has several tools to support deep analysis of the data. For example, their system allows managers to compare employees’ self-ratings side-by-side against other respondents’ feedback. This helps identify any blind spots between where an employee believes they are and what their co-workers have suggested.
Primalogik's comparison mode allows admin users to benchmark each employee appraisal and compare them across their workforce— a useful way of identifying their overall top performers or spotting potential company-wide skill gaps.
Primalogik Standout Features and Integrations:
Primalogik's 360-degree feedback module makes it easy to solicit feedback from multiple sources. Admin users can select their own rating scales for their evaluation questionnaires, and determine the level of anonymity that will be applied to the feedback.
Advanced features in this module include the option for managers and admin staff to launch feedback requests about their employees and solicit responses from specific co-workers; automatic reminders to provide feedback by a certain date; and real-time feedback tracking.
Their performance management software is also available in Spanish or French.
Integrations are available with ADP, BambooHR, Google Workspace, Microsoft Azure, and Okta.
Other Employee Evaluation Solutions
Here are a few more options that didn’t make the best employee evaluation software list:
- Kudos
Best points-for-gifts employee recognition system
- 15Five
Best for identifying high-performing individuals and rewarding top employees
- Culture Amp
For honest, anonymous surveys
- Cornerstone OnDemand
For great performance reporting
- Workday
For simple employee strengths assessment
- AssessTEAM
For detailed performance reports
- Small Improvements
For 1:1 mentoring
- Workhuman
For showing your appreciation with real-life rewards
- iSpring Learn
Best for skill-based competency assessments and detecting knowledge gaps
- Motivosity
Best employee evaluation software for project and goal-based organizations
Related HR Software Reviews
If you still haven't found what you're looking for here, check out these other related tools that we've tested and evaluated:
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- Applicant Tracking Systems
- Workforce Management Software
Selection Criteria for Employee Evaluation Software
Selecting the right employee evaluation software involves a comprehensive review of its functionality and its ability to meet specific use cases. My criteria for evaluation are drawn from extensive personal trials and research into various tools within this category. The chosen software must offer features that not only address common organizational pain points but also enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of performance evaluations. Here’s how I break down the criteria:
Core Functionality: 25% of total weighting score
To be considered for inclusion on my list of the best employee evaluation software, a solution had to support common use cases. These include:
- Customizable evaluation forms: Essential for tailoring assessments to specific job roles and objectives.
- Goal setting and tracking: Key for aligning employee objectives with organizational goals.
- 360-degree feedback: Provides a comprehensive view of employee performance from multiple sources.
- Real-time feedback mechanisms: Allows for immediate performance-related feedback.
- Comprehensive analytics and reporting: Enables data-driven decisions regarding employee performance.
Additional Standout Features: 25% of total weighting score
- Identification of software offering unique features like mobile accessibility, which enables evaluations and feedback on the go, highlighting flexibility in use.
- Solutions that integrate seamlessly with other HR systems, reducing manual data input and streamlining workflows.
- Software that goes beyond generic capabilities, such as advanced analytics tools for predicting performance trends or identifying training needs.
Usability: 10% of total weighting score
- A balance between powerful functionality and ease of use, ensuring a software that can be easily navigated without extensive training.
- Aesthetic interface design that facilitates a positive user experience, with clear, intuitive navigation and layout.
Onboarding: 10% of total weighting score
- Quick and easy onboarding processes, including the availability of training videos, customizable templates, and interactive product tours.
- Evaluation of the extent to which a new user can quickly migrate to the tool and start realizing value, supported by resources like chatbots and webinars.
Customer Support: 10% of total weighting score
- Responsive and knowledgeable customer support, assessed through response times and the availability of multiple support channels.
- Quality of resources provided for troubleshooting and learning about the software.
Value For Money: 10% of total weighting score
- Comprehensive evaluation of pricing structures against the competition, considering the range of features offered for the price.
- Assessment of different plans available, ensuring there's a suitable option for businesses of varying sizes and needs.
Customer Reviews: 10% of total weighting score
- Analysis of feedback from current and former users regarding their experiences with the software, focusing on reliability, user satisfaction, and the impact on performance evaluation processes.
- Seeking out patterns in reviews that indicate strengths or weaknesses in areas like usability, customer support, and overall value.
In selecting employee evaluation software, these criteria ensure that the chosen solution not only meets the fundamental requirements for performance management but also offers additional value. I highlight what makes each solution unique in my reviews above.
Trends in Employee Evaluation Software For 2024
Over the last several years, many businesses have shifted the way they conduct employee evaluations and measure employee performance. And as these processes continue to evolve, the software that supports them is, too. Here are some trends I'm keeping my eyes on in 2024:
1. More Frequent Performance Discussions
These days, things move too quickly for an annual evaluation to be accurate (or helpful). So implementing more frequent review cycles is a step in the right direction. Doing this ensures that employees get the feedback they need in a timely manner, speeding up their skills development and helping them make a bigger impact at your business more quickly.
More and more, employee evaluation software is incorporating features that facilitate more frequent performance conversations. These include tools like:
- 1-on-1 meeting management
- Goal setting structures
- Regular feedback cycles
How to do it: Performance-focused 1-on-1s
Discussing performance regularly in 1-on-1 meetings between managers and employees. This can be in addition to more formal employee evaluations that happen quarterly or every 6 months.
2. 360-Degree Evaluations
In addition to discussing performance more frequently, many organizations are incorporating more holistic evaluation methods. This includes practices like like:
- Gathering 360 feedback: Collecting insights on an employee's performance from their peers, direct reports, cross-departmental collaborators, clients, and other sources aside from their direct manager.
- Evaluating more than just hard skills: Organizations are expanding their evaluation criteria to cover things like soft skills and whether employees embody company values in how they do their work.
The software and technology that supports employee evaluations is developing more functionalities that correspond to this shift. Tools to collect 360 feedback and templates for soft skills evaluations are among features that are on the rise.
By widening the lens on how performance is understood and evaluated, you create more space for what it means to be a high-performing and valued employee. This helps build an environment where various types of performance are valued, and reduces toxic dynamics among colleagues like competitiveness, one-upping, and prioritizing one's own achievements ahead of the team's.
3. Focus on Building Employee Strengths
One of the reasons why employee evaluations are so dreaded is that too often, the focus is placed more on where you're not performing than where you are performing. But time and time again, research has shown that building people's strengths gets them much further than pointing out their weaknesses.
In fact, Gallup finds that teams where 90% of employees or more know their strengths have substantially higher engagement. And teams with higher engagement see:
- 81% lower absenteeism
- 18% higher sales
- 23% higher profitability
This is why an increasing number of businesses are opting for strengths-based models of employee evaluation and performance development. These include practices like:
- Conducting employee skills evaluations for both hard skills and soft skills to better understand the strengths each person brings to the team.
- Mapping skills gaps across the organization to seek out new hires who possess essential strengths that will contribute to the success of the business.
- Implementing employee recognition platforms and rewards programs to encourage a culture of continuous appreciation.
Employee evaluation tools are keeping up with this trend, too. Features like skills mapping and recognition tools are becoming more popular in the software category, helping companies foster more strengths-based evaluation practices.
What Can You Take Away From These Trends?
Integrating these trends into your employee evaluation process—and tapping into the new feature suites that facilitate them—helps you not just conduct evaluations more effectively, but also provide more impactful feedback, drive engagement, and improve retention.
Why? Because all of these approaches help you show employees that they are valued, and that they are more than their job title. They indicate that employees offer more to your organization than their outputs—while still celebrating their contribution to your company's success!
What is Employee Evaluation Software?
Employee evaluation software is a tool that helps organizations track, measure, and assess employee performance. HR professionals use it to conduct employee performance reviews and streamline performance evaluation workflows such as collecting 360-degree feedback from other stakeholders and preparing analytics. Many of these platforms have templates to help you conduct better performance appraisals and goal management tools like KPI tracking.
Employee evaluation software offers numerous benefits, including improved employee performance, increased productivity and engagement, and better goal alignment across your organization. This type of software also helps ensure no employee appraisals will skip through the cracks by automating key portions of the evaluation process, such as requesting feedback and scheduling review meetings.
Features of Employee Evaluation Software
When I'm researching different employee evaluation software options, I keep an eye out for the following features to get a sense of what each platform offers:
- Customizable Evaluation Forms: This feature allows organizations to tailor evaluation forms to fit specific job roles, objectives, and competencies. It ensures that the evaluations are relevant and aligned with the company’s goals, making the assessment process more effective.
- Goal Setting and Tracking: Setting clear, measurable goals and tracking progress towards achieving them is essential for both employee development and business success. This feature helps in aligning individual objectives with company goals, providing a clear roadmap for employees.
- 360-Degree Feedback: It enables gathering feedback from multiple sources, including peers, subordinates, and supervisors, offering a comprehensive view of an employee's performance. This holistic approach promotes a more balanced and fair evaluation.
- Self-Assessment Capabilities: Allowing employees to assess their own performance encourages self-reflection and personal accountability. It also provides valuable insights to managers on how employees perceive their own strengths and weaknesses.
- Real-Time Feedback: This feature supports continuous performance management by enabling managers and peers to provide immediate feedback on an employee's work. It helps in addressing issues promptly and recognizing achievements in a timely manner.
- Analytics and Reporting Tools: Powerful analytics enable organizations to identify trends, strengths, and areas for improvement across teams or the entire organization. These insights are crucial for making data-driven decisions related to workforce management.
- Integration with HR Systems: Integration with other HR systems (such as payroll, learning management systems, and attendance tracking) ensures a seamless flow of information and reduces the need for manual data entry, enhancing efficiency and accuracy.
- User-Friendly Interface: An intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface ensures that both employees and managers can use the software effectively without extensive training, increasing adoption rates and ensuring consistent use.
- Mobile Accessibility: With remote work becoming more common, having mobile access to evaluation software allows employees and managers to complete evaluations, check goals, and provide feedback from anywhere, at any time.
- Security and Data Privacy: Protecting sensitive employee performance data is paramount. The software must adhere to high security and privacy standards to ensure that data is stored and transmitted securely.
Choosing employee evaluation software with the right combination of features will significantly enhance the effectiveness of your performance review process. By narrowing down the features that are most crucial for your use case, you can be sure to find a software that best meets your needs.
Benefits of Employee Evaluation Software
Employee evaluation software offers a structured approach to assessing, tracking, and enhancing employee performance over time. By automating and streamlining the evaluation process, organizations can focus more on strategic development and less on administrative tasks. Below are five primary benefits of leveraging employee evaluation software for users and organizations.
- Enhanced Performance Tracking: This software provides a systematic way to monitor and record employee performance continuously. It benefits the business by offering real-time insights into workforce productivity, enabling timely interventions and adjustments to meet organizational goals.
- Streamlined Evaluation Process: Automating the evaluation process reduces the administrative burden on HR and management teams. This efficiency allows for more frequent and consistent performance assessments, leading to a clearer understanding of employee capabilities and areas for improvement.
- Objective Feedback and Analysis: Employee evaluation software facilitates unbiased performance reviews by relying on data and established metrics. This objectivity helps in making fair and informed decisions regarding promotions, compensations, and development opportunities, ultimately benefiting the organization's culture and employee morale.
- Goal Alignment and Tracking: The software ensures individual employee goals are aligned with the organization's objectives. This alignment clarifies expectations for employees, driving engagement and productivity by providing a clear sense of direction and purpose.
- Personalized Development Plans: By identifying strengths and areas for improvement, the software enables the creation of tailored development plans for each employee. This personalized approach supports employee growth and retention, contributing to a skilled and motivated workforce.
Employee evaluation software represents a transformative investment for businesses keen on nurturing a high-performance culture. For organizations looking to thrive in competitive markets, adopting such a system could very well be the stepping stone to achieving outstanding workforce productivity and satisfaction.
Costs & Pricing For Employee Evaluation Software
These software solutions come in various plans and pricing to fit the diverse needs and budgets of different organizations. Understanding what each plan offers is key to selecting the right one for your business's specific requirements.
Plan Comparison Table For Employee Evaluation Software
Below is a table that outlines the pricing and plan structures for employee evaluation software, designed to help you compare your options at a glance.
| Plan Type | Average Price | Common Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Basic performance tracking, access for a limited number of users, basic evaluations |
| Basic | $5-10 per user/month | Enhanced performance tracking, customizable evaluations, real-time feedback, basic analytics |
| Professional | $10-20 per user/month | All Basic features plus goal setting and tracking, 360-degree feedback, advanced analytics |
| Enterprise | Custom pricing | All Professional features plus unlimited evaluations and users, priority support, custom integrations |
When choosing a plan, consider both the immediate and long-term needs of your organization. The right plan should not only fit your current budget but also support your company's growth and evolving performance evaluation requirements.
FAQs: Common Questions About Employee Evaluations and Performance Reviews
Looking for more information about performance review software, and how to assess employee performance? Here are a few answers to common questions:
What’s the best way to conduct an employee evaluation?
There’s no one single way to conduct an employee evaluation, but there are a few things you can do to help it go as smoothly as possible. Here are a few tips to consider for a well-executed performance review:
- Have a clear structure: Set a clear performance appraisal process and ensure all managers and employees are familiar with the steps.
- Celebrate high performance: Highlighting what people have done well is more important than pointing out their shortcomings.
- Provide actionable feedback: Room for improvement should be empowering, forward-facing, and relevant to their role.
- Focus on the employee experience: Make sure that you’ve considered the before, during, and after experience for employees.
- Ask for feedback, too: Use employee engagement surveys to collect feedback on the evaluation experience, and use it to improve your process.
What’s the best way to evaluate employee performance?
How you evaluate employee performance depends on many factors including their role, what kind of team they’re on, the nature of their work, and the context of your business. While most performance evaluations will assess specific competencies, it’s also common to evaluate soft skills and values alignment. For example, small businesses and startups may place more value on innovation and efficiency as opposed to following processes and maintaining documentation.
How often should you evaluate employees?
Employee review cycles have traditionally been year-long, with employee performance reviews taking place on an annual basis. But many modern organizations and HR teams have implemented more frequent review processes to optimize their performance management. The annual model doesn’t hold up to the fast-paced world of work today, and employee engagement hinges on their ability to develop at work — and be recognized for their growth.
Ideally, you should be conducting formal performance assessments on a quarterly basis, or at least every 6 months. And in between these official meetings, managers should be providing real-time feedback and working to develop employee strengths. Effective performance management is incredibly important to your company’s bottom line. And it requires employee goal setting, clear development plans, and ongoing performance tracking.
What’s a performance management system?
Your company’s performance management system comprises the tools, processes, and policies put in place to keep employees engaged and high performing in their roles. This includes the motivators that encourage high performance as well as the action plans to address underperformance. It’s a part of your broader workforce management efforts, and helps keep the employee experience consistent and fair.
Improve Your Organization’s Culture With Employee Evaluation Software
Employee evaluations help your employees work better together. According to Sheila Heen, lecturer at Harvard Law School, feedback should communicate three things: “appreciation (I can see you — what you do matters), coaching (helping you get better through advice and mentoring), and evaluation (how you are rated or ranked against a set of standards).”
The software solutions I included on this list help you achieve these goals with ease. They enable you to run surveys, set goals, praise high-performing individuals, and coach team members who can improve different aspects of their work. I hope that, after reading this article, you found a tool that can help you improve your feedback processes so you can make your organization stronger.
Additional Resources
Interested in other ways you can ramp up your employee performance evaluations? Here are some other resources I also recommend:
- 10 Performance Management Tools Every HR Pro Should Know
- 10 Best Performance Appraisal Software for Skill Growth
- Top 7 Techniques for Effective Performance Management
- Essential Performance Review Phrases And Best Practices
- 10 Best Talent Management Systems for HR
- 10 Best Succession Planning Software To Develop Future Leaders
- How to Collect 360-Degree Feedback With Example
- 10 Best 360 Degree Feedback Software for Employee Reviews
- 4 Fun Ways to Showcase Your Personality through Employee Recognition
If you're looking to address performance management at the enterprise level, we can help with that too. Take a look at our list of the Best Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) Software Vendors. Or, for more information on managing project-specific resources, visit our Digital Project Manager site to learn more about the Best Resource Management Software & Tools instead.
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For even more help choosing the best HR software, check this out: The 15 Best HR Software Companies