Perficient adopted Work.com over six months ago and it has been a great success, largely due to the value it adds for end users. I’ve mentioned before that Work.com helps me to be a better manager. But what is in it for my employees? Why should they be using it? Can it help them get a promotion?
There are 3 main ways that employees can use Work.com to advance their careers:
- Ensure Your Goals Are Known: One of the best ways to ensure your manager coaches you effectively and helps you to reach your professional goals is to ensure they are aware of what those goals are. All employees create annual and quarterly objectives in Work.com. This allows employees to communicate their drive to improve in certain areas and work with their managers to come up with a concrete plan to get there.
- Share Your Successes: Once goals have been set, employees can post updates to their managers to let them know how they’re tracking against their professional development goals. We stay informed of their accomplishments, allowing us to easily keep upper management informed of our team’s successes.
- Gain Recognition: We heavily utilize “Thanks” badges to give appreciation for work well-done. When someone at Perficient does good work, colleagues show their appreciation by giving them “Thanks” badges on Chatter, giving everyone in the company visibility to their achievement.
All of this factors into what Work.com calls Performance Summaries. In December, my employees filled out their performance summaries, and then I went to read their self-evaluation and review them. In doing their reviews, I learned that Work.com aggregates all of their objectives, action items, notes, private feedback and thanks they have received. I could easily see who had been really successful and should be recognized with a raise, or better yet, a promotion!
