Five best solutions for employee engagement and performance management

Five best solutions for employee engagement and performance management

The digital revolution has altered the rules of employee engagement, and the relationship between employees and employers has changed for good. Today, according to Gartner, only 13% of employees say that they are fully satisfied with their working experience. And only 29% believe that the HR in their office understands what they actually need and want. 

Organizations invest in a better onboarding process and redesigning the workplace in an attempt to improve employee experience. Although these investments do improve employee engagement and satisfaction, this kind of improvement cannot last forever and, in the end, is not cost-efficient.

If you want to manage your employees’ engagement and satisfaction as effectively as possible, you need to ensure that their day-to-day activities and interactions provide them with the best experience and make them feel valued. 

Employee Engagement and Performance Management software helps companies to manage employee progress and estimate job performance and development in alignment with company goals. Companies can recognize employees' achievements, track feedback from employees, conduct surveys, determine the level of employees' loyalty and satisfaction, and promote positive activity. 

In this article, we will consider why having HR software is crucial for business and look at the best tools for companies to ensure employee engagement and increase performance management.

We will explore:

  • What is Employee Engagement and Performance Management and why it is so important.
  • Upcoming trends in Performance Management and Employee Engagement according to Gartner's research
  • Employee engagement and performance management software comparison criteria and key features, that companies look for in HR solutions
  • What makes an effective low-code solution for HR software and how to choose a low-code platform for employee engagement and performance management
  • Five best solutions for Employee Engagement and Performance Management, their tools and features. 

For years, companies have been talking about reinventing performance management and employee engagement. In 2022 companies have to find a way to adapt to the New Normal since the pandemic has passed and the connection between employees and the office isn’t strong anymore.

But how does a company control employee engagement remotely? How does it define one's satisfaction? How does it know what to pay attention to? 

McKinsey did a research on employee retention and came up with 5 common themes that make organizations more effective at keeping frontline talents: 

  • Employees are most likely to stay with an organization where they consistently find meaning and enjoyment in work.
  • Employees that reported strong relationships with both their coworkers and their managers were more likely to stay with their current company
  • Employees who feel they have opportunities to grow and develop reported being more likely to stay.
  • Employees equipped with what was needed to successfully do the job, manage stress, and navigate work-life challenges reported being more likely to stay.
  • While salary unsurprisingly emerged as an important retention driver, non-financial rewards and recognition were also found to be critical. During focus groups at an international distribution company, operators noted that lack of appreciation was one of the main reasons people left the organization. 

Also keep in mind that according to Gartner’s research, on average, turnover costs an organization $18,591 per departing employee. So, increasing levels of employee engagement, satisfaction and loyalty keeps talents in the company and proves a positive impact on your business. That's why companies look for the most effective HR software. Performance management helps to focus on employee development and alignment of company goals with team and personal goals. 

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Look at the numbers of employee management at organizations where performance management utility is high vs those where it is low:

  •   Employee engagement, 14% higher
  •   Workforce performance, 24% higher
  •   The proportion of high performers in the workforce, 7% higher

Gartner predicted the following trends in the future of performance management and employee engagement:

  • Goals will be personal as well as professional. Goal-setting and feedback conversations are meaningful when they help employees directly link their contributions to the organization’s goals. However, personal context is also important. 
  • Employees will prefer places of work where they are primarily seen as a person. 82% of employees polled say they want their organization to see them as people, not just employees.
  • Feedback and development will become more automated. Employees understand, even better than their managers, the kind of feedback and development support they need to improve their performance, but they often lack the facility to participate actively in the process. 

What do companies look for when they select the best employee engagement and performance management platforms? Here’s a summary of the evaluation criteria: 

  1. Usability and user interface. Both employees and managers want the system to be visually appealing, easy to use, engaging and encouraging them to use it on a regular basis.
  2. Customizations and integrations. Having pre-built tools, but at the same time being able to flexibly configure the system is very important for HR software.
  3. Pricing. The pricing structure should be transparent, easy to understand 

There are various types of software, providing employee engagement and performance management tools. Here are the key features companies look for in HR software. 

  1. Daily Engagement with Employees: dashboards, activity feeds where team members can interact with each other to boost engagement.
  2. Goal Setting & Tracking: tools for goal alignment and OKRs implementation.
  3. Survey & Feedback Options: tools to conduct employee pulse surveys, eNPS surveys, to collect 360-degree feedback.
  4. Employee Recognition: tools that identify and reward employees who are achieving excellence in their work.
  5. Collaborative Spaces: internal communication channels, the ability to schedule 1-to-1 and team meetings.

However, in order to be the ideal solution for HR, the software must also meet the following criteria:

  • HR services solution enables the users to create apps and automate anything by themselves, for instance, by using low-code tools and features
  • It allows you to create and change any HR solution for your needs with just the HR team
  • HR solution suits the future of New Normal by agile transformation 

Here’s a shortlist of the most popular 5 employee engagement and performance management solutions:

  • ELMA365
  • Empulse 
  • Lattice
  • Engagedly
  • 15Five

 

ELMA365

ELMA365 is a low-code BPM platform that helps businesses automate processes with little to no coding. The Business Process Management app allows non-technical users to create even the most complex business processes. Drag-and-drop process designer provides simplicity for modeling and accelerates the implementation of changes. Built-in monitoring tools help find bottlenecks and improve the overall company performance.

Why are there so many positive reviews oт the ELMA365 platform and what is it increasingly being chosen for?


Custom Development 

The HR team doesn't need to engage in-house developers or pay expensive consultants, which has been so not cost-efficient in the past. Although, they can do it if it would help the project to move faster or better.

Out-of-the-box solution

ELMA365 brings all requested features out of the box. 

HRMS/HCM

A complete ERP system based on Business Process Management Suite, with existing templates, that provides a quick start without customizing first, and is automation-ready from within for saving HR management’s time and resources.

Low-code HR platform 

HR experts just adopt or refine the processes in the common BPMN notation. This speeds up change because there is no need to develop or customize the solution if you don’t want to. 

Tools and features

  • Surveys. ELMA 365 allows companies to conduct the most popular employee engagement and performance management surveys: Employee Pulse Survey, eNRS survey, 360-degree Feedback survey.

Employee Pulse Survey is a survey to quickly assess the mood of employees and understand their opinion on a particular subject.

eNPS Survey (Employer Net Promoter Score) is a scoring system designed to help employers measure employee satisfaction and loyalty within their organizations, how employees feel about your company, and how it can be used to boost employee engagement.

360-degree feedback is a feedback process where not just your superior but your peers and direct reports evaluate your work.

Surveys can be anonymous and non-anonymous and have different response formats: an open text response, a likert scale and a rating from 1 to 10.

  • Employee Recognition. This is a tool to express recognition, gratitude to employees, and to show how valuable they are to the company.
    During the recognition process, employees receive points that they can later exchange for gifts or gift certificates. Such an element of gamification increases the motivation and involvement of employees. Also, information about the recognition of an employee appears publicly on the Honor Roll.
  • OKRs. This is a tool for goal alignment. The company sets an ambitious company goal and the employees set team and personal goals, and key results for themselves that help achieve the company's goal. All goals are visible on the OKRs tree. 
  • Collaboration tools. The platform has built-in tools for employee communication, you can create common channels for information exchange, as well as schedule 1-to-1 meetings, team meetings and record results and agreements. Any employee can schedule a 1-to-1 meeting, write or select a ready-made meeting agenda. As a result of the automated process, the invited employee will receive a task with the meeting agenda and an event will appear in the employee's calendar. After the meeting, the participants will receive a task to record the results.
  • Self-appraisal tool. Self-appraisals often include individual performance evaluations, input on productivity and an opportunity to set goals for the future. It's important to conduct self-appraisal once or twice a year. It is your chance to find out how you can improve.

It is important to note the excellent UX/UI, user-friendly and eye-pleasing interface, colorful dashboards, as all of this affects employee engagement. 

Free trial version is available for 14 days.

Empuls

Empuls is an employee engagement solution aimed at improving corporate culture, bringing teams together, eliminating fragmentation and giving voice to each employee. The main cons of Empuls is that it’s an out-of-the-box solution and can not be as flexible as a low-code.

The solution offers the following tools: one-on-one feedback, recognition from colleagues, awards and perks, tools for communication. Empuls helps you set up & run pulse surveys, measure and track feedback, and gather eNPS scores.

Empuls allows you to launch incentive programs and coordinate employee recognition programs with corporate culture and values.

Empuls integrates with Microsoft Teams, Slack, Okta SSO, OneLogin SSO, Ping Identity SSO, Azure AD SSO, Google Workspace SSO, Gusto, Keka, Darwinbox, Zoho People, Freshteam, BambooHR, greytHR, SAP SuccessFactors, People Strong, LinkedIn, and Giphy.

Empuls offers a 30-day free trial.

Lattice

Lattice is the platform that helps companies to engage employees and align goals. 

By combining goal-setting, performance 

management, employee engagement, compensation management, career development, and people analytics into one unified solution, Lattice helps HR develop insights that build enviable cultures. It provides: surveys (pulse and eNPS),feedback and praise, 1-to-1s,OKR and goal management.

Free trial version is not available.

Engagedly

Engagedly is a complete solution which provides a 3-pillar framework for aligning people strategy with organizational strategy. It includes tools for executing performance, enabling development and engaging people. 

Tools and features: 360-degree feedback, goal management, collaboration tools, learning management, employee surveys and rewards, gamification. 

Engagedly seamlessly integrates with different software for one continuous user experience.

Free trial version is not available. You can schedule a demo. 

15Five

15Five is a human-centered performance management platform. It provides employee engagement, performance and training solutions to upskill managers to drive business results and employee engagement at the same time

Tools and features: Core engagement survey, 360º feedback, Career Paths & Plans, Goal setting with OKRs, 1-on-1 meeting agendas, Check-ins

Integrations with Jira, Slack, BambooHR, Namely, Microsoft Teams, SCIM, TO, and Work day are possible. 

Free trial version is available for 14 days.

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Why is low-code the best solution? The low-code approach allows companies to automate HR processes and create agile and flexible customized solutions for employee engagement and performance management, fully adapting to the needs of the company. 

How to choose the best low-code platform for HR solutions?

  1. Request a demo or register a free trial version and ask the low-code vendor to create a proof of concept. Prepare a list of requirements and, if you understand that the solution fully meets the requirements, probably, this is what you need.
  2. Involve employees from different departments of your company. Employee engagement and performance management software is usually used by all employees from all departments, that’s why it is necessary to get requirements from all sides. Low-code platform features can help employees from all departments work efficiently and smoothly and establish a quick and convenient way of communication and interaction between employees. 
  3. Invest time into low-code training. Most low-code platforms offer training. It will help employees to understand how to interact with low-code software and understand what business process automation is and why it is needed.

In conclusion, we can say that all of the above solutions can be called the top 5 of the best, as they provide excellent tools for employee engagement and performance management. 

However, ELMA365 stands out from the others. This low-code platform provides not only solutions for HR, but also Document management, CRM, and different solutions for internal processes in a box. ELMA 365 also has a catalog of free ready-made solutions, which you can download from the Store365. What is important, any non-technical user can create their own solutions and automated workflows. And there are opportunities for API integration with any external systems. All the necessary tools in one system - what could be more convenient for the company?

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