Managing performance in an organisational setting implies measuring a workforce’s performance compared to the organisation’s overall goals.
Certain factors influence employee performance in an organisation. A way in which the employer is made aware of these factors is through employee feedback. This blog will, therefore, look into how employee feedback can positively impact performance management.
The Relevance of Feedback Systems in Performance Management
Regular feedback is extremely crucial to managing workforce performance. This creates a two-way communication stream between the workforce and the managers.
The managers provide employees with feedback in the form of regular and constructive information on their performance.
On the opposite end, employees can provide the managers with feedback in the form of expressing any challenges they are facing in the workplace, i.e., factors that harm their performance.
Facilitation of Interactions Between Employer and Employee
A feedback system put in place can essentially facilitate a continuous interaction between the employers and their employees.
What does a feedback system do? Constructive feedback is critical to understanding flaws in existing practices and how to improve them. It can aid both sides, as employees are aided in raising their productivity, and the employers benefit by learning about the ideal management approaches.
Feedback, however, is not only important for recognising flaws, but it also fosters interactions that make employees feel more appreciated by their employers. In fact, 69% of employees have stated that recognition is crucial to building motivation to work harder.
Therefore, employee feedback makes employees feel valued by their employers. While employers are enabled to better discuss critical aspects with the workforce due to feedback. This two-way communication street empowers them to excel at their tasks.
In the modern workforce, the best performance management software have incorporated employee feedback into their systems for this specific purpose.
Feedback Loop Systems And Performance Appraisal
A continuous system of employee feedback management is referred to as the feedback loop. It implements a process of collecting relevant data, analysing it, and using it in an appropriate manner.
Thus, a feedback loop creates a system where the managers are continuously updated on employee performance, especially the causes that either enhance or diminish their efficiency.
In essence, employers are collecting real-time employee data and are consistently updating it. Implying that performance appraisals made through a feedback loop system are up-to-date and more effective in informed decision-making.
This is further encouraged by employees, 75% of whom believe that staying in a regular feedback loop is incredibly significant to their competence and workplace achievements.
The 360-degree Feedback System in Performance Management
Employee feedback systems, and more essentially, feedback loops have given rise to an effective system of performance management referred to as the 360-degree feedback system.
What is 360-degree feedback? It is a survey system that assesses employee performance based on regular data gathering and information analysis. The effectiveness of this system has led to the most notable employee feedback software using a 360-degree approach to evaluate employee performance.
How Performance Management Software Apply the 360-degree Feedback System
How does the best performance management software apply this 360-degree feedback system? The 360-degree appraisal of performance management software involved collecting ratings from supervisors, colleagues, performance reports or even feedback from customers or clients.
This data is assessed, and then the employees receive anonymous feedback reports. These reports are based on critical metrics such as performance, productivity, engagement, efficiency and behaviour at work.
Furthermore, it does not end with the 360-degree performance survey. The results are then utilised to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of employees. This further leads to rewarding positive feedback and planning developmental interventions for the dissatisfactory feedback results.
Thus, performance management software and systems using 360-degree feedback have increasingly become an ideal choice for employers.
In the United Kingdom, the 360-degree feedback system has become a preferred method of performance appraisal, with senior managers from 81% of UK-based organisations agreeing on the frequent usage of the system.
The Role of Real-Time Data in 360-degree Performance Management
360-degree performance management emphasises continuous feedback to reward performing employees and to course-correct underperforming employees. Continuous feedback management essentially requires data to be gathered frequently.
Outdated data does not help address any workforce performance issues, as the information is not up-to-date. And since the information is not up-to-date, it cannot be used to set relevant goals, assess employee strengths or weaknesses and even foster engagement.
Therefore, in a continuous process that implements flexibility in addressing and revising approaches, real-time data is essential. The significance of data-driven performance management has been relayed by research.
The research has demonstrated that performance companies using data analytics in performance appraisal have 1.5 times greater likelihood of outperforming competitors. Thus, companies have increasingly been using data-driven employee feedback software.
Success Circles™ and the 360° View of Employee Performance
Success Circles™, the in-house performance management software by StaffCircle, has applied a 360-degree system in analysing employee performance. This tool uses different platforms for the intelligent assessment of employee performance and places them in a centralised performance management platform.
Thus, using real-time data based on regular feedback (i.e., the 360-degree system), Success Circles™ has created an effective system that is revolutionary in performance management.
It can be stated that Success Circles™ has created a system that has evolved based on important performance management practices, such as a data-driven approach and 360-degree feedback, raising it as a potential candidate for best performance management software.
Summing Up
Employee feedback has been a crucial element of performance management. Employee feedback systems, using real-time data analysis and continuous implementations such as 360-degree feedback loops, have therefore become essential for performance appraisal.
These systems help performance management not just end there, but rather allow the implementation of practices that evolve the workforce.
