3 ways Work.com has made me a better manager

Two months before salesforce.com acquired Rypple (now Work.com) we implemented SuccessFactors; each employee entered in their goals for the next few years. Management reviewed the goals and afterward, I never heard of anyone logging in again! So this summer we switched to Work.com and we wanted to share 3 ways Work.com has made me a better manager. 

We needed an application that was more collaborative and social, one that would be useful to our employees on a daily basis. User adoption of Work.com was high from day one due largely to its gamification aspect; our consultants could not wait to get their hands on the new tool simply so they could send badges to give kudos to their colleagues.

Six months later, Work.com has become an essential tool that I use daily to better manage my team, and our team gets the following benefits:

1. RecognitionOne of my primary goals as a manager is to make sure that my team members continue to be excited about working at Perficient. I believe that getting constant feedback on the work you do is key to employee satisfaction. Using badges to give thanks to employees for their hard work is one way that I can show them real-time that their hard work is recognized and make others at the company aware of their success.
2. Alignment Each member of my team is expected to have several objectives they are currently pursuing with action items around the objectives; these are tracked in Work.com. These objectives are at the forefront of our conversations during our 1:1s and progress is updated weekly. I always know where my team is at towards their goals and how to help them achieve their goals.
3. Accountability During my weekly 1:1s with my team, I take notes on our discussion in the Coaching Notes section. Any action items that come out of the 1:1s get logged as shared actions. It helps me to remember what I’ve committed to and what my team members are committed to.

Overall I am most excited about Work.com as I get a benefit every week as opposed to our last performance application which was a yearly “one and done” exercise.