For as long as pandemic-induced freeze in promotions, pay-rises and bonuses are a thing, pushing employees to complete their performance review on time will be a tough sell. It may feel like another box-ticking exercise, but if done right though, you know it will be useful for the growth of your employee and business. So, your small business will need to find a way to remove the inefficiencies within your system of tracking employee progress. In fact, this is why you should actively try to optimize key performance appraisal metrics such as appraisal cycle time.
A lot of hurdles will present themselves to deter you from these goals. These could range from issues with remotely signing-off forms to tracking progress of the approval.
But, fear not, this is where eSignature solutions can come in real handy.
How Signeasy can plug performance review gaps
Touchless technologies are a real enabler in the present times. It's no secret that eSignature solutions are the best way to get forms filled and signed by remote employees, in the blink of an eye (not a hyperbole!). What would have taken days or weeks can be closed in minutes! This applies to approvals of performance review forms too.Â
Touchless contracts via Signeasy, that ranked #1 on the prestigious G2’s Momentum grid, can be used by SMBs to quickly complete the performance review process. Here are some of the features that improve the speed and quality of the performance evaluation:
- Sign anytime and from anywhere: Printing, scanning and then couriering review forms from employee to manager and then back - it just stretches the performance evaluation process. You can make the entire process touchless, if your employees are working from home, with Signeasy. It lets you electronically sign documents and send them for signature, in just a few clicks, without ever going to a Kinkos or courier shop.Â
- Sign files offline: Poor network connectivity? Signeasy lets you approve performance review documents even when you’re offline and save them as drafts.
- Sequential and parallel signing: Sometimes appraisal forms need to be first approved by the employee and then by their boss, and then parallely by the CFO and CEO. Such complex signing workflows can easily be managed and automated by Signeasy. You can set the workflow based on your company’s unique needs.Â
- Track progress of a document: Performance review is a process that is characterized by managers extensive tracking document progress and sending multiple manual reminders to signers. But, with Signeasy, you don't have to do either. It will deliver automated online updates of the document progress to users. At the same time, signers will be automatically sent reminders to approve the document from their end.
- Sign in the flow of work: Already, knowledge workers spend 41% of their time on admin tasks, which takes away from the time spent on key projects. To reduce such distractions, Signeasy allows signing in the flow of work. Signers no longer need to minimize their existing work apps and open-up eSignature platforms to approve performance review forms. Instead, this app allows for users to sign documents directly from within software such as Gmail and Microsoft Teams.
- Use a custom template: Since performance appraisal forms sent to each employee will be more or less similar, you can just save one of them as a template on Signeasy and then reuse them. It allows you to quickly and easily customize the form, by changing a few fields, and shooting it out to the relevant employee.Â
- Preset custom fields: Because each form has so many fields to be filled in, by multiple parties (employees, peers, manager etc) errors may creep up. To preserve data integrity, Signeasy lets you mark the specific signing locations. This not only ensures that employees fill in the right fields, but also that they complete the form much more quickly.
Meet other performance review KPIs
One of the biggest benefits, as discussed earlier in this article, is the shortening of the Appraisal Cycle Time. You can easily half the average number of days it takes from the signing of the performance evaluation form by the employees to the final approval by the manager with Signeasy.Â
So, no more extending the deadlines for review submissions over and over again!
Aside from that, here are other KPIs that eSignatures can help HR professionals improve:
- Fewer number of errors - Thanks to the preset custom fields feature in Signeasy, employees will know exactly which part of the review form they need to fill in. So, you will have much fewer instances such as the signature or professional KPIs entered into the wrong field.
- Higher satisfaction ratings - Since eSignatures help supervisors avoid the drudgework of correcting forms that are badly filled or sending constant reminders manually to their subordinates to fill in the review, they are likely to be much more satisfied with their work. At the same time, employees can avoid the hassle of printing, scanning and exchanging documents in a post-COVID world. This will reflect in the satisfaction ratings which are usually collected in the form of surveys.
Final Word
When used effectively, on one hand eSignatures enable you to get employees to quickly complete their performance reviews (without any errors). On the other it improves supervisor satisfaction and as they don't have to manually keep following up for completion of the forms and employees. Win-win all around.
No wonder eSignature solutions, such as Signeasy, are considered a real productivity-boosting solution in these trying times.
Clearly, eSignature solutions are a real help in streamlining performance review workflows in a remote-first world. As a further bonus, the software is so easy to use that there is no need to train employees on how to use it.
To see what the fuss is really all about, simply sign up for our 14-day free trial and experience the eSignature magic for yourself.Â
