That's the message from Achievance, Inc., a provider of innovative human resources solutions that last week launched AchievanceHR, an on-demand employee performance management software application designed to ease the strain on managers and make companies more efficient.

"Front-line managers are under a tremendous amount of pressure for two reasons," says Delmar Dehn, chief executive officer of Achievance. "First, they have company goals to meet with fewer resources. They need to understand and evaluate the performance of their staff and direct reports but are still using outdated and manual, paper-based processes that can't possibly help provide the level of data managers need today.

 "Second, even if managers had systems that helped them evaluate employees more effectively, there is a misunderstanding in the business world about the role of goals and appraisals. Goals should be for managers-has an employee completed a task effectively by a set deadline? Appraisals are tools for HR to determine how an employee is performing overall. Managers waste too much time with subjective appraisals."

Finding solutions to these two problems prompted the development of AchievanceHR; a new kind of employee performance management tool offered over the Internet using software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model. Accessed by managers, HR professionals and any authorized employee, AchievanceHR offers a number of tools for an affordable monthly subscription. The solution has organizational hierarchy tools, real-time employee performance management tools, and goal-management features in one synchronized product.

Most notably, AchievanceHR is specifically designed for changes in the way companies are structured and the way in which employees work today. The old top-down organizational structure of the past has given way to multiple project teams in which employees spend their days working with different managers and leaders. AchievanceHR allows managers to track, assess and reward their employees across these multiple teams and hierarchies at the same time, ultimately identifying and compensating the best employees and spotting areas for development and additional focus.

Keeping Pace with How People Work

"We've changed the way we work," says Diana Van Blaricom, Chief Solutions Officer, Achievance, Inc.. "Today we work in clusters, small groups and project teams, all at the same time. We have many different supervisors and team leaders, many of whom never give feedback for a performance review. And the old paper system of tracking how employees are performing simply can't keep up. Old systems can't offer the level of detail or real-time data needed for a company to stay efficient and profitable today. Tools like AchievanceHR are the way forward."   

What is AchievanceHR and how does it work? Following is a list of the features and benefits:  

•      AchievanceHR is a new kind of human resources tool designed to ease the strain on front line managers by making employee performance management easier and more effective.

•      The product emphasizes the critical differences between goals and appraisals by allowing managers to set and track effective resolution of task-based goals by deadline dates.

•      Managers create SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based), assign them to each employee, and track each goal's status.

•      Offered as a rich Internet application (RIA) over the internet using the software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model, AchievanceHR helps front-line managers monitor, analyze, and assess the performance of individuals and multiple teams across their organization at the same time.

•      Easy-to-use interface allows drop and drag functionality for Human Resources (HR) professionals or administrators to quickly build corporate or team hierarchies and assign employees to those groups.

•      Additional functionality allows HR managers to input specific measurement criteria, ratings, and descriptors for performance appraisals.

•      The solution is designed for the non-linear ways in which companies operate today: a single employee may exist on many different work teams at once, and a manager on one team may be a team member on another project.

•      The product captures real-time employee performance and management data in a central repository as people use the system. This enables deeper analysis of performance across the organization.

•       AchievanceHR is usable immediately after subscribing online, yet it is highly configurable for organizations who want to customize it.

"Some of these new ways of doing things may seem simple or even obvious enough," says Leo Steidel, chief technology officer at Achievance and AchievanceHR's system architect. "But they will actually make a huge, positive impact on the daily lives of managers and provide companies with live data that will inform organizational decisions, increasing productivity, and profitability."

About Achievance

Achievance, Inc. produces best-practice, on-demand human resource software solutions. With more than 25 years of human resource and software expertise, the company brings clients a simple, affordable, and easily configurable solution-delivered as an online service-to allow managers the ability to get back to running their business. For more information about Achievance, please visit www.achievanceinc.com.