A company's performance is only as good as its employee performance — which is why 69% of organizations are increasing their investment in skill-building and employee development. 

But in order for HR leaders to get employees up to speed in fast-moving industries, they need to leverage the right performance support tools. From e-learning resources to tools for personalized communication and support, these tools are designed to help employees grow and flourish within their roles. 

In fast-growth environments like the tech sector where the skill requirements are constantly evolving, performance support tools provide HR leaders with the ability to continually train and upskill employees in a streamlined and efficient manner.

Below, we'll outline everything you should know about these tools and their benefits. Then, we’ll give you a breakdown of five of the best performance support tools on the market today.   

What is a performance support tool?

There are several different types of tools that fall under the category of performance support tools. E-learning and employee training tools designed to support training and development are one common type of performance support tool. These learning/training tools come in a variety of forms — many of which leverage gamification to make learning experiences more fun and memorable for your employees.

Another excellent type of performance support tool is personalized employee communication systems. These performance support systems allow you to support employees throughout their journey with your company and make it easy to provide just-in-time assistance whenever issues arise.

Performance support tools play a central role in onboarding new employees. However, they are also valuable for supporting employees throughout their journey with your company. With the right performance support tools, you can continually upskill your employees and adapt their training on the fly as your company grows (and its industry evolves).

Types of performance support tools

Performance support tools designed for learning and development can come in several different formats, including:

Infographics

Perhaps the most simplistic type of performance support tool, infographics are easy to create and even easier to interpret. Infographics display important data and information visually, making them user-friendly to ensure your employees receive and understand the information they need to know.

Interactive PDFs and e-books

Interactive PDFs and e-books allow you to present detailed information via written text like standard PDFs and e-books. However, they also have the added advantage of enabling you to include interactive elements and job aids such as embedded videos, audio, polls, and hyperlinks.

How-to videos and webinars

How-to videos and webinars/webcasts are excellent for providing employees with step-by-step instructions. Since it's often much easier to explain processes and concepts via video than it is to explain them in a written document, these resources offer a lot of value when it comes to educating your employees and boosting their knowledge retention.

Microlearning modules

Microlearning modules are designed to quickly address a single skill or topic and can usually be completed in five minutes or less. This type of performance support tool is great for swiftly correcting specific skill gaps in a way that won't overburden your employees.

360 surveys

360 surveys gather feedback on employee performance by surveying their managers, fellow team members, and the employees themselves. Using 360 surveys is a great way to pinpoint the exact performance issues and skill gaps that you need to address.

Mobile apps

Many performance support tools come available as mobile apps, enabling employees to engage in mobile learning. These apps are especially valuable for supporting remote employees who won't be able to come into the office for formal training. However, they can also offer many benefits to in-office employees.

Use cases for performance support tools

High-quality performance support tools can be used for numerous applications. Some of the top use cases of performance support tools include:

Onboarding and training

The onboarding process is a vital stage in a new employee's journey. Along with ensuring that your new employees get up to speed as quickly as possible, great onboarding can also boost employee satisfaction; according to research from Gallup, employees who received an excellent onboarding experience report being 2.6 times more satisfied with their job. As tools that are geared toward employee training and development, performance support tools are a great resource for supplementing your onboarding and training programs.

Process support

As discussed above, performance support tools can be highly effective learning aids that help familiarize employees with specific workflows and processes (whether they’re new hires or seasoned team members). However, they’re also valuable tools for HR leaders. 

For example, it may be easy to stay on top of HR processes and employee data for a small organization with 50 people or less. But in a quickly growing sector, it becomes more challenging. HR leaders can use performance support tools to streamline HR processes so that company leadership can support employees through every stage of their journey — even as your company scales.    

Troubleshooting and problem-solving

Performance support tools such as quick reference guides provide employees with a resource to turn to when problems arise. Personalized communication tools such as Pyn are also ideally suited for troubleshooting and problem-solving since they make it easy to provide employees with on-demand, personalized support when they encounter problems.

Performance improvement

Boosting employee performance is the primary objective of performance support tools. No matter what skills you are trying to teach your employees or what elements of their performance you are trying to improve, you should have no trouble finding support tools designed to help.

Benefits of performance support tools

Great performance support tools can provide many benefits to HR leaders and the companies that they work for, including:   

Increased productivity

When employees are well-trained and well-supported, it's much easier for them to be more productive. If you want your employees to reach optimum productivity as quickly as possible, providing thorough training with the help of performance support tools is a great place to start. Likewise, making it easy for employees to find the answers they need will streamline their workflows.

Standardized processes

Ensuring that every employee receives the same training and instructions will help standardize the processes at your company. This leads to business processes that are much more streamlined and predictable and can help prevent common, avoidable issues.

Enhanced employee engagement and performance

Employees place a lot of value on opportunities to improve their skills and advance their careers. In fact, 91.3% of highly engaged employees report being satisfied with the professional development and training opportunities offered to them, showcasing a strong correlation between employee development and employee engagement. This means that utilizing performance support tools can improve employee productivity and performance by keeping your employees more engaged and satisfied and improving these metrics by teaching them valuable new skills.

Greater convenience and accessibility

One of the best things about performance support tools is that employees are able to access them anytime, anywhere. Offering these tools to your employees means they will be able to find the answers to their pressing questions right away in their moment of need rather than waiting for a response.

5 performance support tools to boost employee growth

If you would like to boost employee performance via performance support tools, you have plenty of excellent options! Below are five of the very best performance support tools available today.

1) Pyn

Pyn is a personalized employee communication tool and employee journey builder designed to help companies effortlessly support employees at scale. With Pyn, you can leverage automation to send out timely, personalized employee messages. This makes it easier than ever to ensure that each employee receives the exact information they need when they need it.

From pre-onboarding communications to helping employees who have been promoted transition into their new role, Pyn lets you map out the entire employee journey and support employees with personalized messaging every step of the way.

Key features

• Utilizes HRIS data to automate employee communications without sacrificing personalization
• Provides behavioral nudges designed for scaling company values
• Enables you to target employee messages based on department, position, location, and more
• Allows you to send employee messages through a variety of channels, including Slack channels, Slack Direct Message, and email

Integrations

Pyn offers integrations with a wide range of other apps and tools, including:

• Slack
• BambooHR
• Namely

2) Culture Amp

Culture Amp is a platform designed to optimize the employee experience and instill a beneficial company culture. With Culture Amp, you'll be able to track key employee engagement metrics and analyze how engagement impacts your organization's performance. You'll also be able to better support your employees and achieve boosted engagement via 1:1 meeting templates and goal/OKR tracking. 

Culture Amp even lets you solidify your company's culture from the top-down thanks to Skills Coach — a tool that helps managers improve their skills via interactive exercises designed to drive new behaviors and encourage habits that align with your company culture.

Key features

• Turnover prediction algorithms that pinpoint employees who are at risk of leaving your company
• Inspiration Engine that provides detailed action plans from over 6,500 leading companies
• Skills Coach for improving manager performance
• Allows employees to share and collect feedback without leaving their workflow
• Useful templates for guiding 1:1 meetings

3) Lattice

Lattice is a performance management solution that makes it easy to track key employee metrics such as employee engagement, employee performance, and employee satisfaction. Along with helping you support your employees via the insights that these detailed analytics provide, Lattice also offers tools for guiding your 1:1 meetings, collecting employee feedback, and recognizing employee accomplishments.

Key features

• Automated performance-based compensation
• Tools for easily collecting and providing feedback
• Rich analytics on employee engagement and performance
• Guided performance reviews enriched with employee data
• Easy to integrate goals and OKRs into an employee's daily workflow

4) 15Five

15Five is a performance management platform that provides a variety of tools for boosting the competency of your employees. This includes tools such as evidence-based engagement assessments, customizable performance reviews, and employee strengths discovery tools. Along with helping you boost employee performance, 15Five also includes customizable manager training and coaching tools for improving manager performance.

Key features

• Tools for providing and requesting employee feedback
• Customizable performance review templates
• Engagement assessments for tracking employee engagement
• Manager training/coaching tools and resources
• Strengths Discovery tool for helping employees understand their strengths and weaknesses

5) ThinkHuman

ThinkHuman is a business training and coaching platform that offers several high-quality training courses for managers. If you would like to provide your employees and managers with an exceptional online training program, you'll find a lot to like about ThinkHuman. By enrolling your managers in one or more of these ThinkHuman courses, you can provide them with the training they need to better support and lead the employees under their charge.

Key features

• 10-session "Leader Lab" program that includes 60 minutes of individual coaching
• Three-session "Leader as Coach" program that serves as an abridged version of ThinkHuman's flagship "Leader Lab" program
• Single-session "Flex Your Style" program for helping managers discover their leadership style
• Business coaching for CEOs and executives
• Team coaching

Enhance your employees' performance with Pyn

Performance support tools are a powerful resource for boosting employee performance, and the top tools on the market today provide a wide range of capabilities designed to help employees reach their full potential. 

If you would like to better support your employees with timely, personalized communication, Pyn is an excellent employee support tool to leverage. To start enjoying the many performance-boosting features and benefits that Pyn offers, sign up for your free Pyn demo today!