As a part of my job, I speak to multiple HR organizations/teams in several organizations. In the recent past, several of my conversations were centred around the employee performance management process.

Performance management is one of the most important functions of HR in an organization. To most people, performance management means an annual review of employee achievements by his/her manager. But over the years this process has evolved tremendously and it has significant impact on employee motivation, talent retention, succession planning but more importantly on alignment of business objectives to individual goals. The performance review process has also undergone significant changes which captures feedback not just from the manager but a 360 degree feedback from the manager, peer, subordinate and also in some cases customers. This review and feedback does not happen annually any more but it is a continuous process. The process of performance management has become completely Agile!! 

As the performance management process has undergone significant changes, organizations are facing challenges in adopting these evolving processes due to multiple factors. One of the major impediments is technological. The technology vendors in the SME space have to innovate and scale to meet these new agile performance management requirements.

The technology should not just be used to capture performance but should also be able to provide insights in terms identifying top performers versus future potential there by helping HR teams to chart out different career paths and other training and development interventions.