PerformYard is a cloud-based performance management solution that helps small businesses simplify and automate employee reviews, goal setting, and continuous feedback. It features a flexible and customizable performance management toolkit that can handle simple to complex staff reviews, from competency-based assessments to multi-manager evaluations.
PerformYard earned an overall rating of 4.27 out of 5 in our evaluation of the best performance management software. It earned a spot on our list given its simple-to-use and solid assessment tools. For its performance management module, you have to spend anywhere from $5 to $10 per employee monthly. This package comes with free setup and access to a dedicated support specialist.
PerformYard Overview
PerformYard Is Best For
- Businesses looking for performance review tools that are easy to understand and use: PerformYard boasts of a performance management toolkit that is simple to use. Even your non-tech-savvy employees won’t have a difficult time learning how to navigate through its features. Plus, the provider offers free user training to new clients, saving you from having to conduct PerformYard software learning sessions yourself.
- Employers that want customizable employee evaluation solutions: Aside from the usual quarterly, semiannual, and annual reviews, PerformYard’s platform can handle a wide range of employee review methods. It even lets you build a unique performance management process that fits your needs.
- HR professionals needing solid performance reporting and analytics tools: With PerformYard, you can automatically track employee performance data and analyze results using various data points (such as teams, roles, and a specific timeframe). It even has review cycle progress tracking and a nine-box grid for assessing high performers and potential leaders.
PerformYard Is Not Ideal For
- Employers with limited software budgets: While PerformYard offers reasonable rates, you have to sign up for an annual plan and meet minimum pricing requirements. For a more budget-friendly option, consider AssessTEAM. It doesn’t have pricing requirements and has a starter monthly fee of only $3 per employee (versus PerformYard’s $5 per employee monthly rate). Check out our AssessTEAM review to know more about its features.
- Companies that want to streamline performance reviews and compensation planning: If you only want one platform to manage employee evaluations and plan compensation changes (e.g., performance-based salary increases), we recommend Lattice. Unlike PerformYard, where you have to integrate with Paylocity to plan salary changes, Lattice has a compensation module that allows you to do that and more (such as check and compare market benchmarking data). To see if it has all of the features you need, read our Lattice review.
- Businesses that need performance management and HR tools in one platform: PerformYard isn’t equipped with all the functionalities needed for managing employees and various HR processes (such as hiring and time tracking). For more suitable options, check out our guides on the best HR software and top HR information system (HRIS) for small businesses.
How PerformYard Compares With Top Alternatives
Best For | Free Plan | Monthly Fees | Learn More | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Businesses needing easy-to-use review tools | ✕ | Starts at $5 per employee | ||
Companies looking for an affordable performance review solution | ✕ | Starts at $3 per employee | ||
Employers wanting performance & compensation planning tools | ✕ | |||
Businesses with growing HR responsibilities | Free for up to five users | |||
Looking for something different? If you want an online solution for collecting feedback from your team about employee engagement, the company’s overall work environment, and other topics, check out our guide to the best employee survey tools to find one that’s right for your business.
PerformYard pricing details may be available on its website, but you still need to call the provider to discuss your requirements and request a quote. It also has a minimum pricing requirement and you have to sign up for an annual plan, which requires a lump sum and upfront payment of all yearly fees. These factors cost PerformYard several points in our pricing criterion.
However, it does offer a reasonably-priced performance management plan. You can expect to spend anywhere from $5 to $10 per employee monthly to access its online solutions for managing performance reviews, assessment cycles, work goals, continuous feedback, and reports.
An employee engagement solution is also available as an add-on tool. For an additional fee of $1 to $3 per employee monthly, you can track employee engagement scores, run anonymous surveys, and monitor real-time participation rates.
PerformYard has a feature-rich performance management suite that supports various types of review methods—from traditional employee assessments and project-based evaluations to client reviews and staff exit interviews. However, its lack of mobile apps for iOS and Android devices prevented it from getting a perfect rating in this criterion.
It can handle 360-degree feedback and has online tools for monitoring work goals and creating assessment templates. It eliminates tedious HR tasks by automating review processes, task or schedule reminders, and approval notifications.
Here are its other performance management solutions.
What’s great about PerformYard is that it allows you to create the review cycles, workflows, and tasks that you need. It has assessment templates you can use—but you can also build your own or import existing review forms directly into its system.
Its platform is also designed to handle both simple to complex reviews. Here are some of the evaluation types that PerformYard supports:
- Semiannual and annual reviews
- Project-based assessments
- Competency-based evaluations
- Quarterly check-ins
- One-on-one reviews
- Performance improvement plans and reviews
- Exit interviews
You can schedule and send evaluation forms, and set up the necessary form sign-offs and approvals online. System administrators can also assign reviews to employees identified as a manager’s direct reports.
PerformYard helps you document employee feedback, from one-on-ones to peer and 360-degree feedback. You can even request external stakeholders to leave their feedback about your work or a project you handled for them.
Its platform also has a recognition feature that allows users to share public feedback about fellow team members either through PerformYard or via its integrated communication apps like Slack. This makes it easy for you and your team to recognize employees and celebrate big and small wins at work.
It even stores feedback and performance review notes for you. This allows you to easily access and view all feedback notes from the previous year.
With PerformYard, tracking and aligning work goals are made easy with its goal setting tools. You can create goals and cascade this to your teams and employees or companywide in real time. Managers can monitor goals online to ensure that employees are working on tasks or projects that contribute to the company’s overall goals. You can even connect it to your new hire onboarding or regular employee performance reviews to track the progress.
Aside from tracking goals and performance reviews, PerformYard can help you collect and monitor employee engagement sentiment. Available as an add-on solution to its performance management module, this solution includes online anonymous surveys and a data analytics dashboard for viewing engagement scores and trends.
PerformYard received top marks in this criterion given its solid reporting and analytics tools. You can use filters and group performance data to analyze evaluation results, find trends, and compare teams or departments.
Its platform can also store performance histories and track employee or team progress across review cycles. For finding potential leaders, PerformYard has a nine-box grid matrix where you can plot review results and identify high-performing employees.
- Free system setup
- User-friendly interface
- Customizable solutions
- How-to guides and video tutorials
- Dedicated support specialist
- Phone and email support
- Integration with HRIS and collaboration tools
PerformYard features an extensive performance management toolkit with solutions that are intuitive, simple to learn, and generally easy to navigate through. Its platform is designed to make performance reviews and goal setting less stressful for both employees and managers. These contributed to PerformYard earning a perfect score in our ease of use criterion.
What I appreciate are its video tutorials that walk you through the system’s different features from creating a review form to requesting feedback and launching a review cycle. If you need help or have questions about its functionalities, such as customizing workflows and evaluation templates, a dedicated support specialist is available to answer your queries. You can also email or call its support team if you require assistance.
New users also don’t have to worry about setting up the system. PerformYard offers free setup and implementation support. The provider will even train your employees on how to use its system.
If you use business software like HR information systems (HRISes) and collaboration tools, PerformYard connects with popular systems. Here are some of its partner solutions.
- HRIS: Paylocity, Gusto, ADP, BambooHR, Rippling, and Workday
- Single sign-on (SSO) tools: Microsoft Office 365, Google Suite, Okta, and OneLogin
- Collaboration solution: Slack and Microsoft Teams
Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
---|---|
Generally user-friendly; with flexible review solutions | Report customization options aren’t robust |
Ease of managing employee evaluations and gathering feedback | Limited in-app help resources and integration options |
Good customer support | Occasional software login issues |
This is another criterion where PerformYard earned top marks in our evaluation. Most of the PerformYard reviews online are positive, with many reviewers highlighting its generally user-friendly interface as its best feature. They also added that its online tools make tracking goals and managing reviews easy for them. Some users even commended its support team for being helpful and responsive.
However, a few reviewers find its report customizations and integration options lacking. Others wished for more robust in-app help tools to make it easier to access how-to guides and tutorials.
At the time of publication, PerformYard reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4.8 out of 5 based on more than 80 reviews
- G2: 4.8 out of 5 based on nearly 800 reviews
How We Evaluated PerformYard
For this PerformYard review article, we looked for essential functionalities that make creating, implementing, and tracking performance reviews easy for users. We also considered pricing, ease of use, reporting features, integrations, and customer support options, including feedback from actual users.
To view our full evaluation criteria, click through the tabs below.
25% of Overall Score
Many performance management and HR systems require quotes or annual minimums. We considered those aspects, as well as the per-employee price and the availability of a free plan.
40% of Overall Score
We looked at the breadth of tools, from online evaluation forms and goal tracking to 360-degree feedback and mobile app functionality. We also checked if the software offered unique features, such as nine-box assessments, review scheduling, and an e-signature solution.
15% of Overall Score
We considered interface, customer support, online guides, HR software integration options, and learning curve when compiling this score.
10% of Overall Score
Preference was given to software with built-in basic performance reporting tools, analytics, and form/report customization options.
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.
Bottom Line
PerformYard offers a wide suite of performance review tools designed to streamline all facets of the employee evaluation process—from creating review forms and launching review cycles to setting goals and gathering feedback from peers, managers, and even external stakeholders.
What’s great about PerformYard is that it provides its clients with a dedicated support specialist, including free implementation assistance and user training. Pricing is also reasonable, with monthly fees starting at $5 per employee.
Sign up for a PerformYard plan today.