Why should I spend money on an online appraisal system when paper costs nothing?

If you have ever tried to conduct an employee performance management process using a paper-based system, you will know how much time and effort it takes! Often such processes involve a ‘one-size-fits-all’ form, that gets passed back and forth from HR to manager, to employee. During this exhausting exchange, HR will be continually chasing to follow the process and ensure it is completed on time. Finally (if it gets back to them) HR need to manually record performance ratings and file the paper never to be seen again! There is also a tangible cost to be placed on the time and resources used. So you can see why spending money on an online appraisal system is favourable. Not convinced? Read on…

A paper appraisal system costs you much more than you think!

There are many other elements to factor in when thinking about the transition from paper to an online appraisal system. Your CFO may see it as an unnecessary cost to their bottom line and you may need to present a business case to secure budget, but what else does it deliver:

At Actus we view people performance as we do projects. You don’t start a new project and then review right at the end do you? No, you keep on monitoring progress, the budget, record achievements, resolve any issues and ensure it is completed on time. That is what you should be doing with your people and what you can configure your online appraisal system to do!

The traditional once-a-year sit down has been replaced with year-round performance and regular check-ins. An online appraisal system enables that year-round approach making it a live-time tool enabling both manager and employee to keep a continual dialogue. This will then ensure no nasty surprises when it comes to the end-of-year review.

Employees are more engaged with their performance if;

a) the process is meaningful to them as individuals, i.e. you can flex the templates to suit their role
b) they can access the information for clarity of role
c) they have the ability to input in live time

Better still, as a manager, you can catch them doing something great and recognise that achievement in real-time. Whatsmore, you can still have an audit trail for your final end-of-year discussion.

If you’re not wasting so much time chasing up the paperwork, then you can dedicate more time to value-add work or strategic thinking. This is something we struggle to find time for but is so important for the evolution of our organisations.

We also talk a lot about the right culture, attracting talent and employee engagement and if we look at one segment of the workforce, Generation ‘Y’ (or Millennial’s as they are more commonly known), this group simply expect everything to be readily accessible and that means it needs to be online, it’s what they have grown up with, it’s what they know!

Don’t fear change!

So, in summary, it is completely understandable to question the perceived upfront costs of implementing an online appraisal system and it’s also very natural to be nervous about introducing new technology, but the benefits really do far outweigh the cost and if you keep it simple and communicate the benefits to all the results will speak for themselves and you’ll never look back! Why not take a look at our White Paper on building the business case or book a free demo of the Actus appraisal system below.

White Paper: Making the Business Case for Performance Management in the Cloud

Request Free Actus Software Demo