In just a few weeks’ time, we’ll be releasing a feature that helps our customers manage employee reviews and objectives. It’s been a long time coming, and customers have been asking about it pretty much since day one of Kin (way back in 2013).
Early in our design and research, we learned that most companies (including our own) don’t want or need comprehensive performance review software. Their primary need is with the administration of reviews and objectives. The cursed “annual performance review” is partially the product of not having the resources or time to provide more frequent get togethers with employees.
So, rather than build a highly prescriptive, highly customizable tool, we’re addressing the lowest common denominators that will have the biggest impact on our customer’s efforts to keep engagement high and feedback flowing.
Our goal with Kin’s employee review software is to bring people together, then to get out of the way. We want Kin to be a facilitator in the employee review process, not the object of discussion itself.
Here are a few sneak peeks of the new tools.
Employee Objectives
Employee objectives are mission critical to helping employees stay aligned with company goals and growing professionally. We did a nice little write up on the what’s, how’s, and why’s of employee objectives a few weeks back.
Kin’s version of employee objectives is simple. Both employees and managers can create them, then both sides work toward the goal of completing the objective. Kin tracks progress, notes, and feedback.
Then, when it’s time for employee reviews, just crack open Kin and have a look at all the goodness going on in an employee’s objectives.
Pssssttttt! We actually snuck this feature in a few weeks ago and it’s ready for all of our customers to start using in advance of the bigger release in a few weeks. Here are some more details.
Scheduling and delegating employee reviews
Ensuring check-ins with employees happen regularly when a company is small is easy – ya swivel your chair around and start talking. When the team grows though, it gets tougher to have off-the-cuff discussions with employees. That’s when it’s time to formalize the review process and ensure the entire team stays connected and well-aligned.
In Kin, HR and operations folk have the tools to set up waves of reviews (monthly, quarterly, etc.), group employees with managers, and then assign a time-frame for when the reviews should happen. Once they’ve saved a group of reviews, they can track the progress and completion of the reviews.
The review itself
For the review feature itself, we’re keeping things simple. In addition to tracking progress on their objectives, employees are asked to provide feedback on their own contributions, that of their managers, and lastly, on the company. Likewise, managers can give direct feedback to an employee and it’s all shared in a single, clean, and legible page.
Productive feedback == better collaboration == successful workplace.
Employee reviews get a bad reputation because employers let bad process (and software) get between them and constructive conversations with employees. Kin’s new tools bring the right mix of software, flexibility, and administration to help companies and their employees stay aligned, productive, and moving ahead.