After many years ofworking with organizations as they try and figure out their performance management software systems, one thing that continues to amaze me is how little thought is given to managers and employees when selecting and rolling out software systems. In the same vein, how rarely performance management is viewed within the context of improving business results.

Now that we are more than a year beyond the economic meltdown of 2008/2009, there is a huge opportunity to salvage your performance management system and put it to work in helping your organization achieve results. It’s not only an opportunity, it’s an imperative. In most organizations, the business environment has drastically changed and many risk a slow recovery due to talent being misaligned to meet altered objectives and challenges.

And the key to realigning is flipping your performance management system and focusing on goals and business results FIRST, and then worrying about evaluating employee performance to ensure you have the right talent in place to help achieve results and meet new challenges in a post meltdown world.

It’s a great opportunity for HR to finally meet their key constituents (employees, managers and senior management) at their own level, and build a performance management system that aligns with their interests.

Read my white paper, “Performance Management in a Recovering Economy,” to learn more about how to finally get your performance management system on track.