Despite the latest effort by the Euro-zone leaders to support some of the weaker countries from defaulting on their debt, the world’s economy still remains under threat from the far more serious problems looming in the US. Regardless of what happens it’s the businesses around the world that are being relied upon to generate economic growth, not Governments.

A fascinating report, “Strategic Performance Management” by global management consultancy, the Hay Group, finds that firms globally are targeting growth which is double that of forecasts that the IMF expects to occur. The study finds that firms recognise the challenge of doing that but believe it’s possible through increasing employee performance and productivity. However, this report says that not only are employees overstretched but firms are ill-prepared with the right systems to make this a reality.

“In response to the economic downturn, U.S. business leaders focused solidly on controlling costs. Now, as they look to improve business results and get more discretionary effort from their people, it’s time for them to shift their focus to performance management.” Katie Lemaire, Vice President at Hay Group.

They also found that U.S. business leaders understand that improving individual performance is critical to achieving their growth targets. The majority (68 percent) plan to implement more rigorous individual performance management this year. But there is a warning businesses should listen to:

“U.S. business leaders face a significant challenge as they work to achieve aggressive growth targets with a workforce that is already stretched thin. To fully harness the power of their employees, executives need to take a fresh look at how performance is really managed to ensure people are enabled to drive organizational performance.”

Are firms geared up with the right processes and management tools to make this happen? We at Teamly don’t believe so and the research by The Hay Group agrees, indeed the subtitle of their report is “performance management systems are broken”.

It’s in this context that Teamly – as a lightweight team management tool – can really deliver results for individuals and the business as a whole.  From our own research at Teamly we’ve found that performance management inside companies of all sizes is lacking. Small companies manage on an ad-hoc basis so quality and approach varies wildly, meanwhile in large companies the management processes usually exist but are not considered effective. A perfect example of this is annual employee reviews which are frequently just regarded as just a piece of admin which no one takes seriously.

We believe people want to feel like they are doing a good job, feel like they are on top of their work and that they are making progress toward their own and the company’s goals. Hay Group recommends that “leaders provide more direction and clarity, so that employees know how their efforts tie into the broader strategy and impact results.” At Teamly we couldn’t agree more with that.

We believe that technology can really assist not only in improving individual employee performance, but also employee satisfaction. Software has improved many aspects of business:

• Run your sales operations with CRM, like Salesforce.
• Track your company’s finances with accounting software, like Xero.
• Manage a project with collaboration software, like Huddle.
• Improve your back office systems with ERP, like Netsuite.

But from our research only around one quarter of businesses use software to help with the management of their people; this needs to change.

Hay Group’s Lemaire says firms have to “create a culture of dialogue throughout the year, rather than relying on a once-a-year conversation about performance.” One of our biggest users is mt (media temple), the LA based web-hosting company. They adopted Teamly as they were looking for a low friction way to keep their daily, weekly and monthly goals in sync. Real-time feedback and reviewing of employees adds value.

Another of our biggest users is Telelink Call Centre of Newfoundland, Canada; Cindy Roma their CEO of Telelink Call Center, said this about Teamly:

“I love that not only can we see the graphs and progress of our team, but that they can see them too. It provides them with the ability to self identify when they are going off track and gain confidence in their work when things are getting done.”

These are real examples that we have which align with the Hay Group report’s conclusion that most firms view performance management as a process to control compensation but that leading organizations treat it as something much more significant and use it instead as a way to empower employees to drive organizational performance. Teamly is a tool which rather than focusing on increasing a person’s efficiency, focuses on increasing a person’s effectiveness. It’s not about getting more work done, it’s about getting the right work done.

The name of our product underlines how the best companies work, together as a team, and are accountable to each other. We hope that businesses large or small take this call to action and look at tools like Teamly as a way to help grow their businesses and support the management and performance of their people.