Mobile Performance Management and What It Offers Your Organization

How do you manage your employees’ performance? What systems do you have in place to help? If you’re still relying on outmoded systems and once-per-year performance reviews, the chances are good that you’re not seeing the improvements you should. The right performance management (PM) system can help, notably when it offers mobile features and capabilities.

What Is Mobile Performance Management Technology?

Mobile technology is all around us today. It’s become part of our everyday experience. You check your email on your mobile phone. You use your tablet to read books or peruse Facebook. We’re more connected than ever, and we expect to be able to take the technology we use every day with us wherever we go. The same should be true for your performance management system.

Mobile performance management is nothing more than the next leap in the evolution of this technology. It simply takes the capabilities of a computer-based performance management system and makes them available via a smartphone and tablet application.

What Does Mobile Performance Management Offer?

Performance management has changed a great deal today. Gone are the annual reviews. They’ve been replaced with ongoing conversations, fluid goals and KPIs that change and evolve very quickly, and more. Mobile performance management delivers critical capabilities that support performance improvements while dovetailing with the new focuses of PM.

Supports Communication

One of the key differences between modern performance management theory and yesteryear’s practices is a focus on ongoing, accurate, informal conversations. Rather than formal reviews where information flows from the top down, managers and employees are empowered to speak with one another on an equal playing field. Information can flow both ways.

The right mobile app can support this. Having sit-down conversations with every employee a manager is responsible for can be very time-consuming. To alleviate some of that, consider using a mobile app that features chat and messaging capabilities to encourage ongoing communication while helping to save time.

Accessing and Aggregating Feedback

Organizations are finding that to manage employee performance, they must listen to those same employees. This is true during check-ins and reviews, but the increase in feedback and the resulting trend of continuous listening requires something more. Mobile performance management software can help.

Employees can be encouraged to share their thoughts, ideas, and feedback through any number of mediums, not just in-person check-ins and conversations. For instance, with mobile software, employees can complete and submit surveys, polls, appraisals, and more from their mobile devices. That information is then directly accessible through the performance management software on the backend, making it easier for decision-makers to access accurate data and make informed choices.

Dashboards

Part of managing performance is setting objectives and key results for each employee. However, it can be challenging for employees to determine if they are on track to meet those objectives, at least until the next check-in, when they’re informed whether they succeeded or not. Mobile performance management software can radically change this paradigm with access to a real-time dashboard.

When an employee logs into the app, they may be presented with information pertinent to their specific objectives and key results. That data might be shown in any number of formats, such as bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts, and more. It’s possible to transform that data into any format that better communicates meaning to your employees and helps ensure that they remain on track and can reach the goals set for them.

Analytics

Data is all around us today, but it is useless if we cannot parse, sort, and transform it into something more meaningful. For instance, what good does it do to know your monthly sales for the last month unless you have something to benchmark against? The same is true for performance-related data.

Mobile performance management software provides a way to analyze and sort information. It’s all about transforming information into something more usable, relevant, and evocative. Better data enables you to make more informed, accurate decisions. It also helps ensure that you see an accurate picture when it comes to employee performance and their progress toward objectives.

Better Identification of Underperformers

Sometimes employees simply cannot perform at the level they need to, regardless of the amount of coaching you provide. However, it can be challenging to build a case for chronic underperforming. With mobile performance management software, you have an ongoing record of check-ins, conversations, and, most importantly, employee performance.

With that information, you can identify underperformers and then find a better place for them within your organization. Then, you can use the same software to identify people who would be a good fit for the newly vacated position and make better appointments. This leads to many important benefits, including:

• Better employee/position fit
• Improved morale
• Better talent retention

Employee Growth

Finally, the right performance management system will foster employee growth and development. It’s not just about setting and tracking expectations. It’s about providing your team with the tools and resources they need to achieve those objectives and then keep moving forward. Mobile performance management software can tie into your learning management system, providing employees with access to additional tools, resources, knowledge, and training to help ensure that they are as prepared as possible for success.

Also, this relationship between PMS and LMS ensures that you can provide support for your employees in the long term. For instance, identifying skills and aptitudes during performance management can allow you to provide more accurate training for upskilling and career development.

In Conclusion

Mobile performance management software ties into your regular PMS, providing additional tools and capabilities. It’s all about being more agile and enabling better decision-making while supporting your teams with access to things like real-time performance metrics and progress through meaningful information. It also helps improve employee retention, can boost workforce morale, and can even help ensure you have the right people in the right positions.