5 Ways to Use Talent Management Software for Business Success August 20th, 2007

David

Talent Management is a hot phrase among HR managers nowadays, and for good reason: companies who effectively manage their talent recruit and keep top talent while training their existing talent to a higher level of competency — resulting in better financial performance. These organizations have more consistent company visions, and a workforce that is more aligned in their mission to achieve that vision. But lofty goals aside, setting up and sticking to a talent management process is a feat all itself.

Luckily, there are several talent management software products on the market that simplify this process. Employee performance and talent management software provides consistent structure, guidelines and usability. Handy features like email alerts and online employee evaluation forms ensure that the processes actual get done, and data is managed in a logical way that scales well with a growing workforce. These systems are incredibly intuitive, come with thorough training support services, and can be taken advantage of in five key ways to improve your business:

1. Evaluate your Workforce

One thing that’s still dreaded by many businesses is yearly performance appraisals. Not knowing what to say, managers or employees may postpone the process. Without a consistent structure, unconscious or overt biases may affect a review. Employees are often nervous during reviews, and often don’t provide their own feedback in the review process. The paper or spreadsheet based system becomes increasingly cumbersome, difficult to compare year-to-year, and fraught with anecdotal remarks. Even if your company has a software system, it may be inconsistent with your other business processes, based on local computers, or track data in manner difficult to use later on.

Today’s employee performance appraisal software, such as Halogen’s eAppraisal, make this process meaningful, rather than a chore. For example, with eAppraisal, employees can initiate the process by filling out a web-based self-evaluation form, which upcoming completion alerts a manager via email. The automated alerts can be scheduled to continue to remind both the employee and manager that an appraisal is coming up, encouraging this event to actually happen.

Authoring aids help managers make efficient and accurate evaluations, saving an incredible amount of time while using consistent, understandable phrases to evaluate employee performance. Complex appraisal scales and goal management features ensure that reviews focus on the points most important to an employee’s position and the overall mission of your business. The information is all stored securely — either in a hosted setup or on your own servers — and is accessible and usable year-round, turning this chore into a meaningful talent management process.

2. Know Your Weaknesses…

Perhaps the most important part about the employee performance appraisal process is determining where your business needs improvemeent. Having performed the reviews through the consistent software system makes drawing these conclusions much easier than with more esoteric methods.

Key to eAppraisal is a variety of real-time reporting options to distill competency information in a meaningful way. Weighted scales allow you to factor an employee’s competency based on the unique demands of their job, as well as tying it in to particular learning goals or desired outcomes. This allows for very specific reporting for company objectives that allow you to determine if there is a shortcoming company-wide or among a select group of employees, and make decisions accordingly.

3. …And Overcome Them

Training is key in your organization, whether you’re trying to motivate chronically underperforming employees to do better or to help your top performers become competent in a new area. However, determining who needs what training has seldom been a straightforward process. At least, not without training management software.

With meaningful assessment data identifying weaknesses, or opportunities for growth, managers can then go into the software and define new goals, and development plans necessary to achieve those goals. Tie this in with existing training offerings from your existing Learning Management System or database and you have a defined path for achieving your business’ objectives. Furthermore, you can track progress over time, and your information garnered from earlier performance appraisals enables very clear evidence of whether or not your plan is working.

4. Get the Best

Though it’s more affordable and often more effective to foster talent from within, every organization needs to hire new talent, especially as the baby boomer generation look towards retirement. But any recruiter will tell you that getting competent talent is a greater challenge today than ever before.

Talent management software doesn’t provide an easy fix for this problem, but it does provide strategies to help you make better hiring decisions. Setting up company-wide goals, establishing learning objectives, and developing an understanding of the skills needed to succeed at your business all help define the parameters used when evaluating new hires. Knowing your existing talent pool enables you to better identify where you need to hire external talent and where you can educate existing employees to perform a job outside of their current skill set.

Prospects will see you as a focused, intent company with a defined pathway to fostering employee satisfaction and professional growth. This sets up a culture dedicated to success in a way that a poorly managed system fails to do.

5. Keep Them Happy

The only way to maintain a satisfied, engaged, and capable workforce is by offering excellent compensation agreeable both to your bottom line and your employees’ needs. Talent management software makes finding this common ground far easier than wading through the sea of paper or spreadsheets common of the past.

Halogen’s eCompensation is designed to foster a pay for performance culture, with interaction with eAppraisal providing an objective, consistent system for determining employee performance. Checks and balances keep compensation decisions fair, and the system is automated all the way through distribution and budgeting approval.

With fair compensation, tangible impact of and upon the appraisal process, and defined goals for professional growth in line with those of the company’s overall vision, your employees will enjoy a culture that is truly growth-oriented, which translates very clearly into financial performance. Talent management software makes setting up these processes easy, consistent, and meaningful for everyone in your organization.

About the Author:

Joan Woodbrey is the Marketing Assistant for Dresser & Associates, one of the leading National Partners for Sage Software with customers in 38 states offering Sage Abra HRMS, ABRA HR, Abra Learning Action Compliance, payroll software and HR software from Sage Software. Joan writes for the Dresser & Associates HR Management Blog on topics of interest to human resources professionals.

Tags: employee evaluations, employee performance appraisal, employee performance reviews, goal management, HR, talent management