Top Tips for Monitoring and Tracking Employee Performance
Monitoring and tracking employee performance are very important for all organisations, whether small or large. It is the best way to check if your employees are performing their duties. Imagine a scenario at work where Joseph clocks in at work for 8 hours but yet fails in delivering much of the task for the day or Britney who’s very good at pitching sales but fails to meet sales targets weekly then you ask yourself what could be wrong in my company? Are they not talented enough or is their time not being managed well? So, whether your employees work onsite, hybrid, or remotely, it can sometimes be difficult to differentiate whether their performance is underestimated. The truth remains that tracking employees’ performance has become more complicated than simply calculating the hours at work but the benefit is that it allows you to analyse the efficiency, effectiveness, and work quality of your employees. it gives an employer to know the difference in an employee’s performance within a periodic time.
In this article, we’ll be sharing some tips to help you get started.
Tips for Monitoring and Tracking Employee Performance
Set out goals and expectations
As an employer, you must have an idea of how you want your company to look in terms of your context, structure, and goals. Before setting out your employees’ performance by monitoring them, you should inform them in terms of delivery, then if it is properly structured by stating a guideline it would be very easy to identify who is lagging. It is completely up to you as an employer to ensure all employees know their roles and duties and what’s expected within each project or task.
For starters, you can come up with strategic ideas by relying on a framework to clear goals. These frameworks include;
- OKRS (objectives and key results)- Many employers are becoming inspired to introduce OKRS. it’s a goal-setting framework used by individuals, teams, and organisations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes. The fundamental importance of OKRS is to achieve measurement, accountability, and transparency.
- Key performance indicators (KPS)- refer to a quantifiable measurement used to calculate the overall performance of a company. It clearly illustrates whether your company is reaching its goals or not. An employer needs to implement KPIs because it devises strategies to meet and reach your goals and evaluate your performance. KPIs can be tracked through business analysis software and reporting tools.
- One of the best goal-setting frameworks is smart structure, it enables you to be specific. Measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bounded.
Use Monitoring Software
This is one of the most effective ways to monitor and track an employee’s performance. There are different software assigned to track activities and analyse data regarding their task duties for the day. Software like- Manage Engine Op Manager, Sematext, Auvik, and System monitoring are all web-based and cloud-based monitoring software. Monitoring software helps to improve the performance of your employees by regularly reviewing to adjust to areas that need improvement.
Arrange 1:1 Meetings
The proper way to monitor an employee’s performance is by regularly conducting a 1on1 meeting. Every employer should learn to play a key role in the performance of its employees. Ways of doing that include providing frequent training to the checklist if they are well or not, integrating recognitions like rewards, perks, and benefits to appraise any employee that performed very well, and also getting suggestions of development from other employees. For instance, once an employer, manager, or supervisor frequently checks the engagement level of their employees in a task, it gives a better idea of how ongoing the task is progressing.
Implement a Time Tracking System
Time tracking systems are used to monitor how your employees work during the hours of the day. Time tracking software is the ultimate solution to monitoring and tracking the performance of an employee for it helps with better data, task length, billable hours, or anything related to helping organisations, and employers know about how various tasks are processed daily.
Examples of software like Teamwork, Clockify, Timecamp, WorkPlus, and Desktime are very good for time tracking.
Use a chart
It is very easy to measure how many tasks your employees have done within a specific time frame. When you’re handling by projects, it’s very easy to turn data into charts using project management software in less than 10 mins. When you’re using a project management tool most especially a chart, you need to be very creative by making use of a custom chart feature that helps you to track employee performance.
Improve your leadership skills
Employees tend to perform tremendously in a non-toxic environment. Any employer needs to make their work environment very conducive in terms of being a good leader. Being an effective leader can bring employees closer to you. Regular dialogue boosts employee engagement tools and productivity. Being a good leader makes the employee extremely loyal to your business and also helps to minimise turnover of employees by ensuring the long-term success of your company.
Listen carefully and gather information
Most times, it’s very good to act intellectually smart by gathering information from other employees, customers, and managers about specific employees’ duties and roles in the company. Do not just believe whatever’s said but keep your ears down to understand.
Trust
The other important way to monitor your employees’ performance is to trust them. This means giving your employees the freedom to take ownership of their job and also to work independently. If you give them the assurance that you trust them, you’re more likely to get improved productivity in their performance and also to meet deadlines.
Conclusion
The performance of employees is very crucial to the success of any business. Implementing and monitoring the performance of employees shouldn’t be a one-time thing, it should be an ongoing process of listening, improving incrementally, and adjusting periodically. In summary, every employer should know that human capital is the most valuable asset to your company’s growth. Close employee tracking gives a vivid picture of the performance of your business and if it’s on the right track.