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This synopsis is brought to you by the RCI Center of Excellence. In addition to summarizing the work for you to save you time, we relate the salient points to our own thinking on the subject. Please feel free to add your own views and comments in the Comments section at the end of this article. Enjoy!
Employee Performance Management:
Making it a Reality in your Organization
Published by: Halogen Software
An employee performance management (EPM) system demands a vendor selection project plan. This ‘demands a timeframe for progressing through eight critical steps’, according to Halogen. These are:
- Become familiar with solution pricing:
This should take no more than two days. Do the various EPM systems conform to the HR budget? Ask vendors for rough cost estimates or visit their websites for license pricing figures.
- Establish organization-specific business needs, priorities, benefit expectations:
Document current employee appraisal processes and note any desired improvements. Establish whether the EPM system you are considering is not simply a generic one that leaves your organization’s needs out of the picture. Define your specific requirements; this is critical to success. Divide these into ‘desired and mandatory’ requirements, then view demos. Also note benefits that the EPM system will deliver across the entire enterprise (factoring in organization wide, benefits for HR division, manager/end user benefits).
- Gain initial management buy in:
Gain support by precisely outlining the organization’s needs and requirements. Present general costs and then outline the next steps in the process and how implementation will be achieved.
- Prepare a draft implementation plan:
Implementation follows the signing of the contract and the first appraisal process. Your plan should include: software installation, training, set up of appraisal processes, population of user data, launch and monitoring of the live process. Once a vendor has been selected, precise timings of each of these should be determined.
- Evaluate EPM vendors:
Allow between two and four weeks for this step in the process. Make sure that the system will support all of your organization’s steps in the appraisal process, check off each of the mandatory and desirable requirements (see step 2) and finally verify that the product you have selected will yield desired results.
Ask for a complete demonstration and don’t hesitate to ask for another to double check their ability to generate one of their appraisal forms. Request multiple years’ fees including support, hosting, training, and so on. Evaluate each vendor in terms of implementation and ongoing costs. Do they provide a perpetual licensing model? Is the software provided as a service? And check any references the vendor has provided.
- Refine a draft implementation plan with the vendor in mind: What is it about your vendor’s methodology that will deliver results? The more completely you refine your draft implementation plan, the more likely it is that you will secure support for the system.
- Present vendor recommendation to executive: Without going into excessive detail in the overview, include the following:
- Clear definition of the expected results
- A clear rationale for the choice of vendor
- Explanation of why competing vendors were not selected
- A price comparison
- A solid implementation project plan
Prepare answers to possible questions that may be asked , such as ‘Will the system be implemented in time for our next appraisal round?’ and ‘Will the data be confidential’, and ‘What is the return on investment’.
- Act on executive approval and establishing contract:
Capitalize on the momentum that has been established by moving ahead with the contract.
Sound simple? Halogen has detailed the critical steps that will enable HR managers to launch an EPM system. They note that a vendor’s history combined with flexibility and adaptability within the EPM system are the critical factors to take into account. So now it is up to you.
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