14 Tools to Measure Employee Performance

What are employee performance measurement tools?

Employee performance measurement tools analyze employee performance and engagement against key metrics. You can use these tools to identify areas for improvement and address any productivity concerns you find. Typically, these tools take the form of computer software purchased from third-party vendors. The platforms contain features like goal setting, recordkeeping and data analysis, which you can use to evaluate the performances of individual employees as well as entire teams. 

Employee performance measurement tools are more useful than ever as many businesses embrace remote work. Instead of walking around the office and checking in with your employees in person, employee performance management tools automate this process for remote leaders by collecting data such as time spent on a project, idle time, time in a document and more. You can then use that information to assess an employee’s performance and give feedback. [Related article: How Informal Feedback Can Improve Employee Performance]

What are the top employee performance measurement tools?

Interested in tracking your employees’ performance? Explore 14 of the best employee performance tools on the market to find the perfect fit for your company’s needs.

1. BambooHR

Regular employee reviews and check-ins can help employees achieve their professional goals — and allow employers to identify and resolve issues in the moment. BambooHR allows managers to create, schedule and implement streamlined yet effective performance evaluations, all on a timeline that works for the organization’s needs. In addition to regular formal reviews (up to four times a year), you can also schedule project- or milestone-specific assessments as well as impromptu check-ins. Managers can leverage both traditional assessments and self-evaluations, providing further insight into employee performance to facilitate open dialogue.

2. Basecamp

Basecamp is a great tool for those with remote teams who’d like to keep track of employees’ tasks and performance. The Basecamp software organizes everything in one place, and you can see your employees’ progress on assignments in real time. Additionally, it provides an overview so managers can see what each employee plans to work on for the day — and if they completed their list by the end of the workday. This eliminates unnecessary communication between both parties and empowers your team to manage their own workload.

3. ClickUp

Described as “one app to replace them all,” ClickUp offers a wide range of features, including employee monitoring and engagement tools. The platform offers employee time tracking and productivity reports, with real-time data and insights for managers. ClickUp also comes with dozens of templates, including one-on-one meetings, engagement surveys and action plans. In conjunction with these, managers and employees can leverage ClickUp Goals to automate progress tracking toward team and individual goals to further drive employee engagement.

4. Culture Amp

This employee experience platform adopts a culture-first approach, aiming to help managers understand their team members and provide meaningful feedback. Culture Amp offers a robust template library for employee performance and engagement surveys, including opportunities for self-reflection and peer feedback. The platform also provides personalized, individualized employee development tools to drive professional growth and improved performance. On the internal side, Culture Amp comes with features like turnover prediction and analytics to help organizations make informed decisions and provide targeted outreach to employees.

5. DeskTime

DeskTime is a time-tracking app for businesses and freelancers, but it is especially helpful for business owners looking to measure employee performance. This tool allows managers to monitor employees’ time on specific projects and label different apps as productive, unproductive and neutral. Imagine being able to know how much time a worker may have wasted on Facebook instead of completing an assigned task. [Learn how to filter web content for employees.]

Additional DeskTime features include URL and app tracking to see what websites and applications employees visit, document-title tracking to check the documents they’re spending time in, idle time tracking to understand how much time they spend away from their computer, project time tracking to determine the amount of time they’re taking to complete certain projects and automatic screenshots to check for suspicious activity. 

6. iDoneThis

iDoneThis is a collaborative tool companies can use to keep track of employees’ performance and projects. At the close of each workday, employees respond to an email reminder with all the details of what they’ve accomplished that day. The next day, the entire team receives a digest including everyone’s work from the day before. This keeps each employee and their respective managers on the same page while empowering them to monitor their own performance. Workers will also feel more accountable for their work, knowing they’ll share their progress each evening. Furthermore, when everyone is in the loop on everyone else’s performance and achievements, team members are more motivated to do their share of the work.

7. IntelliHR – Performance Management

This software is a performance management tool that tracks employee performance continuously using people analytics. The software creates a performance summary dashboard for each worker, displaying tracked goals, training initiatives and achievements. Through intelliHR’s performance management platform, managers can automate employee review cycles,  reducing recency bias and manager burden. The data provided paints a clear picture of each team member’s performance, making it obvious when a performance improvement plan is needed or when an employee should be rewarded.

8. Lattice

Lattice offers solutions for a range of human resources (HR)-related tasks, including employee performance management. The platform allows organizations to customize and run performance review cycles on their schedule, whether annually, quarterly or project-based. Managers can easily integrate various sources of information, including peer feedback and integrations with goals and objectives and key results (OKRs), to write accurate and comprehensive employee reviews. Lattice also offers teams the opportunity for real-time feedback, employee status updates and public praise. It also includes tools to improve communication and efficiency during one-on-one meetings. [Related article: 11 Best Tools for Setting and Tracking Goals]

9. monday.com

This employee workflow tool allows managers to create tasks in different categories and rate each as high, medium or low priority. Leaders can assign these tasks to specific employees, who update the status of their progress as they go along. Project updates include “working on it,” “complete” or “stuck,” the last of which communicates to leaders they need assistance. Teams can also create custom status labels relevant to their workflows. In addition, monday.com offers forms to collect information from employees about their progress, opinions and any feedback they have. You can learn more in our full review of monday.com.

10. Paycor

Although Paycor may be best known for its payroll capabilities, it offers a suite of HR tools, including a performance management solution. Paycor’s platform streamlines employee performance tracking by keeping various channels and sources of information — including employee reviews, one-on-one meetings data, OKRs and other feedback channels — in a single location. Managers can leverage customizable templates to guide conversations around employee performance as well as gain individual and team insights from automatically generated reports pulled from gathered data and feedback.

11. Peoplebox

Peoplebox helps businesses integrate goal alignment and talent management across their existing workflows and tools. Managers can run employee performance reviews, either on-platform or via Slack and leverage both prebuilt templates and customizable elements. Reviews can also incorporate information from OKRs and one-on-one meetings, which are also supported on-platform, to provide more holistic feedback. One unique feature of Peoplebox is anonymous messaging, allowing employees to anonymously connect with their managers to discuss issues and close the feedback loop.

12. PerformYard

PerformYard streamlines performance management strategies. The tool allows every employee to participate in performance management with features like 360 reviews, project-based reviews, rating scales, continuous feedback and cascading goals. Employees can focus on the feedback they receive within the application, which facilitates better communication with HR teams and managers.

13. Trakstar

An end-to-end employee management system, Trakstar provides managers with a range of tools to measure and improve employee performance and engagement. It includes customizable performance evaluations with various types of questions and metrics, along with options for 360 feedback and self-evaluations. Along with this, managers can work with their employees to set and track goals, as well as gain employee engagement insights through pulse surveys and check-ins. Trakstar integrates with a variety of third-party tools, including Slack, Salesforce and Google Workspace.

14. Trello

Trello is a work and project management tool that organizes projects into different columns on different boards. This tool helps visualize workflow and ensures each member of your team stays up to date on project progression. Leaders can create monthly or weekly to-do lists for each employee, cards for specific projects to track progress and columns for different phases of each project. By adding users to project cards and automating processes, teams have a defined picture of what they’re working on and when they should work on it. Additionally, the notification feature allows employees and management to communicate on their own terms rather than sending messages back and forth via email or another messaging platform.

What are the benefits of employee performance measurement tools?

Tracking employee performance can improve manager and employee relations by increasing transparency and ensuring every member of a team stays on the same page. The following are specific benefits a company reap when using employee performance measurement tools.

Identifying areas for improvement

There’s always room to improve for every employee. By tracking different employee performance metrics with custom tools, leaders can identify areas where a team member falls short and strategize a solution to address any issues. For instance, if you discover an employee is spending too much time on written projects, you can work with them to find ways to increase their efficiency or choose different assignments in which they’ll thrive.

Understanding your return on investment (ROI)

Your ROI for each employee should stay high, meaning your investment in them is cost-effective for your team and business. If a team member takes too many breaks and doesn’t produce quality work, this may indicate a lower ROI, which requires you to make some adjustments. Tie in productivity metrics with your overall revenue ― factoring in how much you pay each employee ― to determine how much value their employment provides your company. 

Empowering employees

If an employee is aware managers monitor their activity, they’ll feel more motivated to work efficiently. However, you don’t want this motivation to come from a place of fear, nor do you want team members to feel like they’re being micromanaged with constant audits of their time. Rather, workers who know their performance will regularly be evaluated should be empowered to work toward specific goals within the company. Be transparent with your employees about the performance measurement tools and strategies you use so no one feels exploited or caught off guard.

Balancing strengths and weaknesses

Employee performance measurement tools help identify different employees’ strengths and weaknesses. As a business owner, you should understand where specific workers thrive and where they don’t. This information will allow you to delegate tasks accordingly and balance the team’s strengths and weaknesses so everyone feels confident in their work. It can also help you identify gaps in your workforce and indicate when it would be advantageous to bring on additional staff.