Top five employee performance review tips businesses should consider when creating their 2010 News Year’s Resolutions according to ReviewSNAP

ReviewSNAP™ offers the following tips on how making maximizing employee performance a New Year’s resolution that will benefit both employees and the organization.

1. Create realistic goals and expectations.
2. Develop a method to measure success against each employee’s goal.
3. Provide ongoing feedback and coaching throughout the year to employees.
4. Track progress and areas of improvement for each employee throughout the year to ensure clear and thorough feedback to the employee.
5. Implement an on-demand employee performance management program to substantially enhance the performance review process.

“Employee performance is simply taken too lightly in too many organizations” said David Arringdale, President of ReviewSNAP’s parent company Applied Training Systems, Inc. “The commitment is just not there or the approach is not a good match for the employee base. Using a system such as ReviewSNAP™ can have dramatic results. It was developed based on years of experience and research into what makes employees tick and how feedback about performance should be implemented. When an organization makes a true commitment to maximizing the performance of its employees, the results can be amazing.”

ReviewSNAP has a significant subscriber base using both its performance review and 360 degree feedback modules. Companies benefit from having the flexibility and power to track and document performance easily, assure timely and accurate performance reviews, hold mangers accountable for timely and consistent reviews and gather feedback from other employees to use as a coaching and development tool. Research shows that the quality and timeliness of employee performance reviews affect employees’ perception of the organization they work for and employees with high morale produce quality results. ReviewSNAP was developed to make this process beneficial and easy for both employees and managers.

Des Moines Named Best City to do Business

Marketwatch's annual survey named Des Moines the best city to do business. The survey included metro areas with more than 500,000 people and Des Moines beat out cities such as Washington D.C., Omaha, NE., and Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN. ReviewSNAP is proud to be part of this great business city.

ReviewSNAP Launches Cascading Goals in Performance Management System

Yesterday ReviewSNAP launched a cascading goals tool as part of our performance management system. This tool allows you to add goals for the entire company, a department and all employees of a particular job description at the same time. This will eliminate the need to add the same goal into the system a number of times. The addition of this tool also allows you to import your goals into the system all at once. You no longer have to add them in one at a time. Another new cascading goals feature is the ability to select particular goals to automatically rollover to the following review period. This will be very helpful if you have goals that stay the same from year to year. They will automatically roll over to the next review period and you will not have to re-enter them for each review period.

ReviewSNAP Updates List To Be Added To Blog

Upon the request of our client subscribers, ReviewSNAP will soon be adding a section to our blog providing you a list of all of the changes/enhancements that are made to the system over time. To help you better understand the changes/enhancements, we will also be adding a description of the functionality of each feature and how to utilize them within the system. Once the list has been posted, we will send out an email to let you know it is there.

What Lengths Will People Go To Miss Work?

This morning while driving I was listening to the radio and the station was taking calls to hear the craziest takes on what people have done to skip work. This "contest" was prompted by a 29 year old employee who works at Blockbuster who stabbed himself in the leg to be able to miss work. Now, I've heard some crazy stories, but I can't say that I've ever heard of someone taking a sharp object to a body part just to miss a day of work. One of the callers said that she wanted to miss one day of work so she said that she had to go to a funeral. Well, that wasn't enough to get her out of work because she was told she needed to bring back some sort of proof that she was at the funeral. So, she researched online to find funerals that were going on in her area and found one a couple of hours away. Then she researched the woman who had passed away to see where she had lived. When she was at the funeral she was asked by a family member how she knew the deceased and she told them that her Grandma lived with the lady at the retirement home. Ahh, what lengths people will go to in order to miss a day of work.

Those are some crazy stories, but only a few. If you've heard some crazy "why I missed work" stories, I'd like to hear them.

ReviewSNAP Launches AuthoriCheck - Discriminatory/Derogatory Terms Scanning Tool

This afternoon ReviewSNAP launched our new AuthoriCheck tool. AuthoriCheck will be accessed using the gavel icon next to the spell check icon in the text editor above all narrative type boxes within the system. It will give you the ability to scan for any discriminatory and derogatory terms that may have been entered into the text. This tool will help your company avoid any legal issues from arising during the performance appraisal process. Keep in mind that this is only an identifier of potentially discriminatory or derogatory verbiage and is not a substitute for legal advice. If you have any questions or need any help on using this tool, please don't hesitate to email or call us at (800) 516-5849.

Recent ReviewSNAP Enhancements

Recently we made a few changes to ReviewSNAP regarding automatic notifications for upcoming and past due reviews as well as automated reminders sent to managers to leave feedback on their employees. Both enhancements are completely optional and can be modified in the Manage Company Information page.

As part of the change for the automatic notifications, we have added more intervals and now allow you to select which intervals you would like the notifications sent out for. Also, if you need or want to turn off the notifications, you can now do so by unchecking the box next to all of the intervals. Below is the list of intervals that you can select to have notifications sent out for:

Review Notifications:

30 Days, 10 Days, 5 Days, Day of Review, 2 Days Past Due, 5 Days Past Due, and 10 Days Past Due.

Based on the request of some of our clients, we have now added a function allowing the system to send automatic reminders to managers about leaving feedback. This is to help ensure strong communication and documentation within the company and the most accurate reviews. This option can also be found in Manage Company Information and allows you to choose how often you want the reminders to be sent out.

If you are looking to automate your performance reviews this is a great tool to have available to you. It saves HR the hassle of harassing managers to complete their reviews and document performance. If you would like to try out our system, feel free contact us for a live demo or sign-up for a free trial.

ReviewSNAP Attending Non Profit Human Resources Conference

This Sunday ReviewSNAP will be attending and sponsoring the Non Profit Human Resources Conference in Washington D.C. The goal of the 2009 Nonprofit Human Resources Conference is to bring together nonprofit human resources practitioners, executives, thought leaders and researchers to discuss human resources issues of critical importance to the nonprofit sector.

Legal Check Update

ReviewSNAP is currently working on adding a legal check tool to our text editor. This tool will be available on any page within the system that has a text box. Our legal check will be used to search for discriminatory and derogatory language and offer alternative words or phrases to replace the discriminatory or derogatory language. This tool is in the process of being built and the estimated date of completion is October 23rd. Please check back for updates on the progress of the legal check tool.

Do Your Core Business Well

When a business is initially successful, it is generally in one type of business. That success often leads owners and managers to begin thinking they can make any business successful. They start thinking about diversifying into other types of businesses. The reverse of this is when a business is struggling and the owner or manager believes that the only way to achieve success is to diversify.

In both cases, the core business probably represents an opportunity for additional success if properly managed. But there seems to be something about human nature that draws people away from what they do best and toward something that appears to be more glamorous or more intriguing.

We believe it is important to pay special attention to the core business...what it is you do best...and grow that business to higher levels of success. Business newspapers and journals are full of stories about companies that get outside their core business and fail miserably. And in many cases the core business suffers because resources are drawn away from it.
We think that too many decisions to diversify outside of the core business or strategic outgrowth of the core business are ego-driven. Making diversification decisions to feed someone's ego is simply irresponsible.

Before thinking about moving beyond the core business, ask yourself why you are even considering such a move. Can you grow your core business in a profitable, significant manner? Are you doing a good job with your core business in terms of operating efficiency, customer service, margins, promotion and quality of personnel? If there is room for improvement, concentrate and focus on making those improvements. Your objective should be to maximize the value of the business. Making the core business strong in terms of operations and customer satisfaction and loyalty will enhance value significantly. If you divert resources away from the core business by buying another business or diversifying through product or service development, the core business will not get the attention needed to enhance its value.

In short, focus on doing what you do best. And then try to do it better. However, none of this is to say that diversification is necessarily bad. It can be a very positive step for a business. But the point of this brief is to point out that the core business, assuming it has adequate potential, must have a lot of attention paid to it. A new venture can be undertaken as long as adequate resources and expertise are available for both the core business and the new one.