8 Best Performance Management Systems 2023
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Juvy has over 10 years of content writing experience and was a licensed teacher. She has evaluated and written about dozens of payroll and HR software solutions for small business to provide the best answers to your software questions.
Modern performance management systems do more than record annual manager/employee reviews. They include 360-degree feedback, intermittent check-ins, goal setting and management, and more.
We’ve identified the top performance management systems that provide easy-to-use tools that help you evaluate and encourage your employees.
- AssessTEAM: Best overall performance management system
- Zoho People: Best for growing companies building their human resources (HR) program
- TriNet Zenefits: Best for established companies wanting a full HR information system (HRIS)
- Performance Pro: Best for legal compliance and pay equity tools
- PerformYard: Best for ease of use
- Engagedly: Best for employee professional development
- Small Improvements: Best for building your company culture
- BambooHR: Best for HR tools integration
Performance management is the process by which a supervisor monitors, evaluates, and improves the work of an employee. It includes communicating responsibilities and expectations, setting goals, and providing feedback.
Need to know more? Check out our guide: What Is Performance Management?
Best Performance Management Software Compared
| Our Score (out of 5) | Per-employee Monthly Pricing | Annual Minimum Fee* | Company, Team, and Individual Goals | 1:1 Feedback Tools | Implementation Support | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
4.49 |
$3 to $5 |
None |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
| Visit AssessTEAM | ||||||
 |
4.49 |
$3.50 to $10 |
$210 |
✕ |
✕ |
✓ |
| Visit Zoho People | ||||||
 |
4.21 |
$20 to $27 |
$1,080 |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
| Visit TriNet Zenefits | ||||||
 |
4.03 |
$2 to $6 |
$1,125 |
✓ |
✓ |
✕ |
| Visit Performance Pro | ||||||
 |
3.89 |
$5 to $10 |
$4,000 |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
| Visit PerformYard | ||||||
 |
3.84 |
$4 to $6 |
$5,000 |
✓ |
✓ |
May cost extra |
| Visit Engagedly | ||||||
 |
3.65 |
$5 to $7 |
$2,100 |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
| Visit Small Improvements | ||||||
 |
3.61 |
$4.25** |
None |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
| Visit BambooHR | ||||||
*Annual minimums may vary. Call for quotes.
**This pricing is for the performance management add-on; you must also sign up for a custom-quoted base plan.
Note that all providers in this list come with performance review templates and sample questions, automated reminders, and 360-degree feedback.
AssessTEAM: Best Overall Performance Management System
AssessTEAM
Overall Score:
4.49 / 5
Pros
- 79 countries, 50+ languages
- Free support includes HR advisers
- Project evaluations and profitability analysis
- 360-degree and continuous feedback
Cons
- No coaching/learning tools
- No additional HR tools
AssessTEAM Pricing
- Free trial
- $3 to $5 per employee monthly
- No minimums
We find AssessTEAM is best overall because it supports any small business that wants to conduct employee reviews with a huge range of features at a competitive price. AssessTEAM offers feedback tools that start with new hires, allows employee feedback, and can let you evaluate projects as well as people. Even though it’s available in 79 countries, it still offers personal support, even having HR advisers on hand to help you with evaluation strategies.
AssessTEAM topped our evaluation with 4.49 out of 5 stars. Zoho People, which is a full HR system, ties with it, but AssessTEAM gets the top slot because it offers more performance management functionality than Zoho People. It earned perfect scores for functionality, performance, and price. Its reports are not as robust as others on the list and, while users rated it highly, there were not many reviews, bringing down its popularity score.
Companies that live and die by projects will find the project assessment invaluable. (Source: AssessTEAM)
- Evaluations: You can set up evaluations weekly or monthly, after new hire onboarding or projects, or for any other reason or time frame. You can set clear goals and results criteria like key performance indicators (KPIs) so employees can see where to improve. There are self-evaluations and peer evaluations, and employees can compare how they’re doing with others.
- Project and profitability tracking: AssessTEAM stands out in its project analysis. You can set goals and assign values to the project and the people working on it. Then, the software does an analysis of its success vs the effort and expense put into the project to measure its success concretely. No other software on our list has this feature.
- International reach: AssessTEAM works in 79 countries around the world and operates in more than 50 languages. Zoho, by comparison, offers 18 languages.
- Guided rollout: AssessTEAM’s plans include a guided rollout. You can send your job descriptions, and it will set up evaluations for you. You also have technical assistance on hand during and after setup, plus access to HR advisers for setting up evaluation strategies. Few offer this depth of support, and some (i.e., Engagedly) may charge extra.
Zoho People: Best for Growing HR Responsibilities
Zoho People
Overall Score:
4.49 / 5
Pros
- Multilanguage support
- Includes feature-rich HR software
- Inexpensive for the toolset
- Highly rated mobile app
Cons
- Need at least the Premium plan for performance management
- Support is by email, 24/5
- Steeper learning curve
Zoho People Pricing
- Premium: $3.50 per employee monthly
- Enterprise: $5 per employee monthly
- People Plus: $10 per employee monthly
Note: Minimum five users for all plans and $210 annual spend
Add-ons
- Employee profiles: Starts at 23 cents per employee monthly (pricing varies according to chosen plan)
- Zoho Recruit: $600 per recruiter, per year
- Learning management: $18 per user, per year
- Premium support: $114 per month
- Onboarding support: $3,000 to $4,000
Zoho People is on our list for the best HR software because of its versatility and excellent price. It includes a terrific set of performance management tools. It also offers more HR tools (you choose higher plans) and has multiple native integrations to make it a complete HR information management system. Thus, if you’re a small business that is growing your HR department or looking to add software to help automate HR processes, Zoho People is worth considering.
With 4.49 out of 5, Zoho ties with AssessTEAM; however, we placed it second because AssessTEAM offers just a bit more in functionality. The price is excellent, especially for the rich feature set. However, if you don’t need all the HR functions, you may find it too complex for your needs. Users say it has a higher learning curve.
Zoho has a bright interface with a complex toolset. (Source: Zoho People)
- Evaluations: Like others on our list, Zoho lets you schedule regular appraisals, set key result areas (KRAs) and goals, and allows for 360-degree reviews including from multiple raters. It also has competency ratings that associate abilities with specific roles.
- Skill set tagging: Zoho People has a unique feature that lets you tag specific skills for jobs and lets employees tag themselves for specific skills. These include scores and weights based on evaluations. It’s a great tool when building a team for a project.
- Mobile app: While about half the software we reviewed has mobile apps, Zoho’s is the most widely used and popular, with 3.8 out of 5 and about 3,600 reviews on Android, and 4.4 and 160-plus reviews for iOS. It is the most popular app on our list, and only TriNet Zenefits has higher ratings but fewer reviews.
- Additional HR tools: Zoho is going to give you a full HR system, with onboarding, files management, paid time off (PTO) management, workflows, shift scheduling and time tracking, billing and invoicing, and more. Only TriNet Zenefits does as much without integration, and it is far more expensive.
Read our full Zoho People review
TriNet Zenefits: Best for SMBs That Need an HRIS
TriNet Zenefits
Overall Score:
4.21 / 5
Pros
- Full suite of HR tools
- Can tie performance to compensation
- Mobile app
- Free payroll for a year (limitations apply)
Cons
- Most expensive on our list
- Performance tools part of an overall HR package
- No 24/7 phone or chat support
TriNet Zenefits Pricing
- Growth: $20 per employee month;y
- Zen: $27 per employee monthly
- $6 per month for contingent employees
- Minimum five employees for all plans and add-ons—$1,080 per year
Add-ons
- Payroll: $6 per employee monthly (one year free)
- Advisory services: $10 per employee monthly
- Benefits admin using your own broker: $5 per employee monthly
- Recruiting: $62 per month
TriNet Zenefits is best for businesses that are ready to upgrade to an HRIS to track their employee HR data online. It offers traditional performance reviews that align the workforce through shared goals, and it adds tools to document one-on-one meetings with managers to improve employee engagement and performance.
TriNet Zenefits earned 4.21 out of 5 on the rubric. It earned perfect scores for ease of use, reporting, and performance tools. Its pricing brought the overall score down. It also had the lowest user rating of all the software we reviewed: 3.95 out of 5 averaged over multiple review sites.
The 1:1 meeting tool allows for peer as well as manager-to-employee conversations. (Source: Zenefits)
- Evaluations: Your HR team can establish, launch, and track review cycles. TriNet Zenefits supplies a library of templates for any kind of review, including 360-degree feedback. It also allows for one-on-one feedback among peers or with supervisors. Goal management tools let you start at the company level so that employee and team goals are aligned to help the business succeed.
- Complete HR: TriNet Zenefits and Zoho People are the only two performance management software on our list that are part of a full HR system. Zoho People is cheaper but TriNet Zenefits ranks higher in our lists for the best HR software and HRIS systems.
- Tie performance to compensation: Like Performance Pro, TriNet Zenefits lets you tie employee performance to compensation like bonuses or raises. This comes with the Zen Plan. Performance Pro requires the addition of its Compease program, however.
- Mobile app: TriNet Zenefits has the highest-rated app of all the performance software we considered: 4.4 out of 5 on Google Play (some 1,000 reviews) and 4.3 from the App Store (300-plus reviews). The app is employee-based and includes time tracking, time-off management, benefits, and more.
Read our full TriNet Zenefits review
Performance Pro: Best for Legal Compliance
Performance Pro
Overall Score:
4.03 / 5
Pros
- Automates the evaluation process
- Can tie evaluations to compensation
- Writing assistant checks for trigger words
- Easy to use
Cons
- Need to call for exact pricing and minimum
- No employee engagement tools
- No mobile app
Performance Pro Pricing
- $2 to $6 per employee monthly
- Minimum $1,125 per year
- No free trial
Additional plans let you add Compease and The Learning Center:
- Add one: $3 to $7 per employee monthly
- Add both: Call for quote
Performance Pro is the most traditional performance management system on our list. However, it stands out from the rest in that it includes legal checks that help your managers avoid language in their evaluations that might get them or your company in trouble. It costs extra, but only Performance Pro has this tool. In addition, it has a strong toolset for evaluations and goal setting at a reasonable price.
Performance Pro earned a solid 4.03 out of 5 on our rubric. The lack of a mobile app took down its score, as did the fact that its reports are filterable but not customizable. It also doesn’t have as robust a help system as others on the list. However, it offers a good range of features, with a high score in functionality and a perfect score for user reviews and popularity.
Templates and sample questions make it easy to create evaluations. (Source: Performance Pro)
- Evaluation tools: Performance Pro takes a traditional approach to goal setting, with strategic objectives, setting and weighing goals, and periodic reviews. HR can set up automated review schedules with names of reviewers, reports, forms, and email reminders―all generating and sending out automatically.
- Writing assistant and legal checks: Performance Pro is the only software on our list with a writing assistant tool that gives your managers a start at crafting a written review. Plus, it flags words that may be inappropriate, so managers can change them before finalizing the review. This can protect your company from a manager publishing discriminatory remarks in an employee’s performance evaluation.
- Align goals to compensation: If your business ties bonuses and raises to merit, then Performance Pro makes it easy. With its compensation management program, Compease, you can create automated merit raises with budgeting tools and competitive salary data to ensure you’re giving a fair recompense. Only Zenefits also offers this feature.
- User satisfaction: At the time of this writing, Performance Pro has the second-highest user satisfaction rate, next to PerformYard. It averaged 4.51 out of 5 from 195 reviews on third-party sites. Users said they sometimes had to hunt for a function but it was overall very easy to use.
PerformYard: Best for Ease of Use
PerformYard
Overall Score:
3.89 / 5
Pros
- Intuitive dashboard
- Customizable reports
- Peer praise
- High scores from real-world users
Cons
- Need to call for a quote
- No onboarding/new hire tools
- No mobile app
PerformYard Pricing
- $5 to $10 per employee monthly
- Need to call for an exact quote
- Minimum $4,000 per year
- No free trial
PerformYard is not the highest-ranked performance management software on our list, but it is the highest rated by real-world users (for its intuitiveness and overall ease of use, among other qualities). Its pricing is competitive, and it offers the most important tools needed to run regular evaluations, plus peer praise and informal check-ins. It offers features for ranking employees to find high performers and potential leaders as well.
PerformYard earned 3.89 out of 5 on our rubric. Its more expensive pricing took the score down as did the lack of a mobile app and new-hire evaluation tools. Even so, it earned perfect scores under popularity, reporting, and ease of use.
PerformYard’s visualization tools make it easy to see top performers and future leaders. (Source: PerformYard)
- Evaluation tools: PerformYard has an intuitive interface and is highly customizable. You can develop your own forms and cycles from its list of templates and sample questions. You can set up formal evaluations or quick check-ins. It incorporates feedback from reports, managers, self-assessments, and peer reviews—even people outside your organization.
- Visualization tools: Get a quick look at your best employees or let your employees see where they fall with PerformYard’s visualizations. It includes a nine-box evaluation feature to help you identify those that may be ready for more responsibility or promotion. Some of the other software on our list, like Engagedly, have similar features.
- Highly praised by users: Most of the software on our list earned high scores from real-world users, but PerformYard earned the highest user score overall, with 4.8 on Capterra and 4.7 on G2. Users praise the ease of use and intuitive interface, and customer service earned a perfect five stars on Capterra.
Engagedly: Best for Employee Development
Engagedly
Overall Score:
3.84 / 5
Pros
- Social learning tools
- 9-box leadership evaluation
- Learning management tools available
- Other HR tools available as add-ons
Cons
- Must call for quote
- No application programming interface (API)
- Could use a better knowledge base
Engagedly Pricing
- No free plan
- Call for quote (sources suggest $4 to $6 per employee monthly)
- Minimum: Starting annual agreement is $5,000
Like traditional performance management software, Engagedly lets you create goals and schedule performance reviews. But it goes beyond that with employee engagement, collaboration, and communication. It provides peer-to-peer (P2P) feedback, a cool interface, and a mobile app to provide real-time feedback to employees in addition to standard reviews. With tools to identify future leaders and opportunities for advancement, it’s a great system for HR managers interested in helping their employees develop professionally.
Engagedly earned a 3.84 out of 5 in our evaluation. The difficulty in finding pricing took its score down—most on our list at least give some pricing information on their sites—and the documentation and difficulty finding support also brought its score down. However, it earned full marks for performance tools and functionality.
Nine-box assessments help you measure leadership development. (Source: Engagedly)
- Evaluations: Engagedly provides the usual standard performance reviews, plus 360-degree evaluations and goal setting. However, like Small Improvements, it also lets your employees request feedback and provide their peers with real-time praise. Managers can choose rating scales as well as goal measurements and competencies.
- “Social learning”: Engagedly provides a process called “social learning,” through which employees can ask questions and learn from their peers. This costs extra but is a feature unique to this platform.
- New hire: Managers can work with new hires to set initial goals in their first days and, with the learning management system, include documents and overview resources to get them ramped up quickly. It also offers smart 30-, 60-, or 90-day reviews.
- Leadership evaluation: Engagedly offers multiple tools for assessing and finding future leaders within your organization. Managers can use 360-degree assessments to get feedback on their roles. The nine-box evaluation feature measures leadership development on potential vs performance. Finally, the Talent Card function lets you identify people recommended by their managers for other roles or increased responsibilities.
Small Improvements: Best for Improving Company Culture
Small Improvements
Overall Score:
3.65 / 5
Pros
- Employees choose peers to review them
- Chat feature for public or private kudos
- Add-on employee happiness/company wellness tools
- 16-plus countries (mainly the US, the UK, and Australia)
Cons
- No mobile app
- No onboarding evaluations
- Engagement costs extra
Small Improvements Pricing
- 14-day free trial
- Starter Pack: $5 per employee monthly
- Feedback and Performance Suite: $7 per employee monthly
- $2,100 minimum
- Engagement and retention add-on: $2 per employee monthly
Small Improvements has a strong emphasis on company culture, with tools that not only help you evaluate company health but also promote employee interaction and support. In addition to standard evaluations, it includes features to let employees give each other kudos, help each other in goal achievement, and more.
Small Improvements earned 3.65 out of 5 on our list. It lost points for its higher price, lack of a mobile app, and not having as many features as others on our list. Nonetheless, it earned one of the highest scores for functionality and has respectable user reviews.
Build employee interaction with praises and badges. (Source: Small Improvements)
- Employee-customized evaluations: Small Improvements is unique in that it gives employees power over their feedback. They can indicate who provides feedback in their 360-degree evaluation, and they can reach out to coworkers and managers for feedback at any time. You can also allow them to choose questions for their feedback and designate who can see their evaluations.
- One-on-one meetings: Small Improvements is big on 1:1 meetings, with the ability to schedule, set agendas, take notes, and more. It’s the most feature-rich software on our list in this regard.
- Company culture: If improving your company’s culture is one of your objectives, Small Improvements can help. Its higher plan includes a praise feature that lets employees give kudos and badges to reward behaviors and accomplishments. Praises can be cross-pollinated into Slack and Gmail. You can also add on employee happiness and retention surveys to better track where you stand as a company.
BambooHR: Best for HR Tools Integration
BambooHR
Overall Score:
3.61 / 5
Pros
- Can be customized
- User-friendly
- Centralized employee database
- More than 50 integration options with open APIs
Cons
- Pricing not available on website
- Access to its TRAXPayroll integration requires an additional fee
- Performance management is a paid add-on
BambooHR Pricing
- Seven-day free trial
- Essentials: Custom
- Advantage: Custom
- Based on a quote we received, it charges $8.75 per employee monthly for businesses with 20 employees. As the number of employees increase, charge reduces
- Add-ons:
- Time tracking, $3 per employee
- Performance management, $4.25 per employee
- Payroll
- Implementation time: Around four to six weeks, depending on the number of employees
BambooHR capitalizes on its user-friendly platform by providing a straightforward yet engaging performance management tool. It lets you create and track employee work goals using automated notifications, reminders, and built-in reporting tools. You can create 30-, 60-, or 90-day assessments depending on your needs.
It’s best for organizations already using other HR solutions as BambooHR can integrate easily with the many popular payroll, ATS, time tracking, and learning management tools—and more. AssessTEAM can connect to 200+ apps, but it has limited support for HR apps and can only connect to payroll tools.
If you’re considering BambooHR, note that its performance management tool is a paid add-on, meaning you need to subscribe to either its Essentials or Advantage Plan first. If you only need a performance management tool, then it’s not for you.
BambooHR earned an overall score of 3.61 out of 5 in our evaluation. Considering that performance management is just an optional paid add-on, it performed well. Its score took a dip in pricing because it’s not available on the website and you have to talk to a sales representative to get a custom quote. It also scored low on reporting because of the inability to create custom reports. However, it performed well on other criteria because of its carefully planned performance management tools.
BambooHR’s user-friendly interface lets you access performance management tools easily. (Source: BambooHR)
- Easily customizable review cycles: With BambooHR, you can provide feedback to employees monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly. It lets both employee and manager perform assessments to help recognize strengths and weaknesses. It’s then easy to compare both assessments and make a good starting point for a discussion.
- Custom performance evaluation: Different teams in your business measure accomplishments and growth differently. No worries, because you can customize your performance evaluation for different teams.
- Automated reminders: You don’t have to keep an endless list of reminders for performance reviews. After setting the frequency and method of assessment, you’ll be reminded automatically by email with a link to the assessment.
- Goal Status report: This feature allows executives to have a general overview of the employee’s progress. Managers can also keep track of team-wide goal progress in this report.
Read our full BambooHR review
How We Chose the Best Performance Management Systems
For this guide, we considered over a dozen different systems, most of which were not part of a full HR system. They had to manage employee goals, conduct performance reviews, keep track of manager and peer feedback, and provide actionable reports.
AssessTEAM topped the list with a score of 4.49 out of 5. It not only handles goals for companies, teams, and individuals but also projects. It serves 79 countries and integrates with hundreds of HR software tools. It even offers HR advisers with its higher plans.
Click through the tabs below for our full evaluation criteria:
25%
Pricing
20%
Performance Review Tools
20%
Functionality
10%
Popularity
10%
Reporting
15%
Ease of Use
25% of Overall Score
Many performance management systems require quotes or annual minimums. We considered those aspects as well as the per-employee price. AssessTEAM and Zoho People got perfect scores.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at the breadth of tools, from onboarding to annual reviews, goal setting to peer feedback, and whether there was a mobile app. Again AssessTEAM and Zoho People got top marks, along with Engagedly and TriNet Zenefits.
20% of Overall Score
This reflects tools that make the software easier to use: templates, automations, reminders, and the like. We also gave points for what the app could do on mobile and any unique tools, such as leadership ranking. Full points went to AssessTEAM and Engagedly.
10% of Overall Score
This looks at real-world user feedback found on third-party review sites like Capterra and G2. We considered not only the overall score but also how many people gave reviews. Perform Yard and Performance Pro both have perfect scores here.
10% of Overall Score
All the software offered some basic reports, so we gave extra points to those that had build-your-own tools or a wider offering of report types. PerformYard, Zoho People, and TriNet Zenefits had top scores.
15% of Overall Score
We considered interface, customer support, online guides, and learning curve when compiling this score. TriNet Zenefits and PerformYard earned perfect marks.
*Percentages of overall score
Performance Management Systems Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a performance management system?
Performance management software helps monitor employee performance in a consistent and measurable way. It’s designed to be collaborative—with employees and managers working together in setting expectations, identifying goals, and defining performance measurement. It also allows users to share performance reviews and provide feedback.
How can performance management software help a business or organization?
Performance management systems come with several benefits as it helps organizations do the following:
- Goal management and planning. You can ensure that employee performance aligns with the organization’s objectives and assign tasks that are meaningful to help improve employee engagement.
- Track continuous performance. You monitor each employee’s goals and how they’re achieving these consistently and provide feedback and guidance to improve performance. With a good system in place, you can also see good results as they happen.
- Assess and recognize performance. You can check performance accurately and consistently, recognize strong performers, and derive useful insights to quantify the efforts that your employees are contributing to the business.
Who should use a performance management system?
Any organization that has employees, big or small, regardless of industry, should use performance management software.
Is it necessary to use performance management software?
The short answer is yes. Aside from improving workplace productivity, supporting better employee engagement, and reducing turnover, a performance management system can also give valuable insights that will help support human resource management decisions.
Bottom Line
Gone are the days of the annual performance report. Performance management has grown to include goal setting, frequent feedback, and peer evaluation. The best performance management software works with these changes, providing you with options for developing programs that help you to mold the employees into the best they can be.
For a standalone performance management system, we rated AssessTEAM as the top software. It has the goal-setting and evaluation features not only to start your teams out right but also to evaluate teams and projects. Prices start at $3 per person monthly. Sign up for the free plan and try it out.
