Today, we all live in a high-speed Internet age. Everything around us is becoming fast. Instant music downloads, instant messaging, same-day deliveries, fast electric cars – you want everything to be fast. News on social spread like fire, kids want everything now, we see start-ups mushrooming in no time, you name it.
Young people fueled by this speed, when becoming employees, are bringing this speed into the lives of our companies. They bring fast changes, want to make fast decisions, they focus on short term and expect to grow fast.
Businesses worldwide, especially after the 2007-08 financial crises, have embraced agile behavior. Being able to react fast to a new market or economic situation became critical. Recruitment became faster, onboarding and newcomers’ trainings should get them up to speed. HR became business-critical to our success, just like finance, operations or production did.
Successful companies treat their employees as their internal customers. Happy employee, the same way as a happy customer, stays with the company longer and helps it succeed.
For the employee performance review to be effective it needs to be specific, regular and frequent. Continuous feedback gives employee a chance to improve the very next month after receiving a feedback. People managers often being swamped with other work tend to postpone giving employee feedback from month to month.
And this is where XperienceHR comes to help.
Employee feedback
We are introducing a continuous employee feedback feature integrated into the regular monthly process of timesheet and absence approval.
Redefining a Purpose of the Timesheet
At XperienceHR we are convinced about a simple fact: the right time and place when the feedback should be given is when the manager is approving the monthly timesheet!
Forget about opening a separate app to capture quick performance feedback. Speeding up this process, XperienceHR timesheet has the employee feedback function shining right there on the timesheet page. In most countries keeping employee attendance is a must. A monthly feedback review is not. This simple merger encourages a more frequent, even continuous flow of feedback. Having both functions in one place also eliminates the number of clicks in a routine and makes it a routine.
We have developed the timesheet with a brief feedback field and 5 smiley icons for a manager to write a short appraisal and give happy/sad smiley. Additionally, there is a space for the manager’s Private Notes which an employee does not see. These can be used during the personal appraisal meeting which happens less often.
A new approach that is being pioneered at XperienceHR is to also have an employee submit their achievements for the month as part of their monthly timesheet. This way, the employee will get immediate feedback on his monthly performance. Their achievements will become a part of the performance review notes which will be more specific and to the point, as opposed to many times vague statements.
Another thing to remember is that we do not remember... The performance appraisal can’t be specific enough simply because one does not remember the details of the work from months ago. A simple real-time monthly feedback increases information quality and employees’ engagement. Employees who are getting a specific feedback tend to accept it better. It motivates them to work on their performance improvement. A vague feedback or even criticism is discouraging and not well received.
XperienceHR is a flexible application for tracking time and absences. By redefining the purpose of the timesheet XperienceHR is now upgraded to the employee feedback tool!
