A complete take-down on Spreadsheet vs. Automated Performance Management

Employee performance is a sensitive aspect of the strategic functioning of any company. But the use of generic Spreadsheet tools cannot deliver the expected results to businesses owing to a multitude of reasons.

This article discusses the use of Spreadsheets templates for performance management of employees, and the counter-productiveness resulted from its use. We shall also have a look at the advantages of switching to the advanced Performance Management Systems in the same set of organizational situations to break down the functionality-based differences. As a commercial undertaking, the main point of focus shall remain on the rise in productivity rendered by the approach be it manual or automated. The generic templates can cause a lot more harm than the benefit they will ever produce in a typical business environment. This is due to the deviation from the original objective of employing an employee output measurement tool. Dive in deeper to have a look at the subject and see if you can benefit from an Automated Performance Management System. 

Data Acquisition and Compiling in Terms of Utility

The Spreadsheet templates have to be manually filled. This data entry work cannot be done on a regular basis by the concerned employees, and the company has to assign an employee with the specific task of data entry. This too becomes infeasible if not non-sustainable in the first place. The structure of the information remains the same for the entire staff with minimalistic changes in the template. But the problem is that the assessment of a programmer and a salesman cannot be done in the same manner. Therefore, PMS provides a far better solution to this problem. The HR can configure customized KRA and KPI indices for the employees as per your company’s requirement. While the conventional approach requires the manual input of the performance data, the automation-based system enables the extraction of the information from the daily reporting submitted to the system portal. It is directly converted into the performance components. The data is compiled digitally, and it shall be processed at the will of the administrator. 

Report Generation and Devising the Strategy of Resource Allocation

The computing capabilities of software solutions allow users to generate comprehensive reports based on the required information. The relevant vital requirements, such as employee wise reports, department, location-wise, time period perceptive, and on other parameters affecting the employee’s productivity. The essential details are displayed in an intuitive manner, which helps decision making. It also provides visual inputs to improve decision making. The lengthy reports are not as useful as the short summaries with infographics. The benefit of having such functionalities is the scientific approach to resource allocation. The managers can allocate the work as per the skill set of the staff members and the availability of the resources. Moreover, the time schedule is also improved as the assessment of the capacity of the organization. The competency building can also be done in a constructive manner with the help of detailed information on the staff’s requirements. None of these applications are possible with the use of Spreadsheets tools. 

Integration with other Functions of HR Management

The principal reason for using an automation-based system is the removal of repetitive data compiling and reprocessing. The data from the Performance Management System is directly utilized by other modules. For instance, Payroll Processing can be improved by running a variable pay policy. The performance data is used to generate the variable pay portion of the employee’s salary subject to the achievement of the goals set by the management. As the Spreadsheets need to be reprocessed for the conversion of data.

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We can see that the use of the performance management system software transforms the entire process from formality-driven to result-oriented. As a commercial undertaking, the primary purpose of such systems is not to keep an eye on the employees, but the strategy building is in the center of focus. The principal aspect involves the construction of strategic policy and aligning the efforts of the employees with the company’s vision. As the automation-based solutions have more exceptional configuration capabilities compared to the Spreadsheet templates, the managers can consciously work in the direction of increasing the productivity of the employees on both the individual level and on the grounds of collective efforts.