SuccessFactors Performance Management can support the business process for employee appraisals for any organization. The key to an efficient implementation is to understand what features (functionalities) are available in SuccessFactors, how these can be used to meet your business requirements, and if there is an opportunity to re-engineer your business process to leverage these functionalities.

In this article, I walk you through the functionalities available in SuccessFactors Performance Management and how these can be used to design your appraisal process.

Where applicable, I have provided a comparison between SAP HCM Performance Management and SuccessFactors Performance Management.

An appraisal form in SuccessFactors Performance Management typically contains:

• Employee information (e.g., an employee’s personnel data: name, job title, and department).
• Review dates (e.g., mid-year and annual appraisal dates; this can also include quarterly review dates as well).
• Goals and objectives (a list of all goals and objectives to be evaluated)
• Core values (these are organizational goals assigned to employees)
• Competencies (these are related to job-specific skills and behaviors that are required to succeed in the current role). Employees are evaluated against these behaviors.
• Performance summary (these are calculated ratings; it includes comments from managers, peers, and the employee).
• Signature (the electronic signature of the employee and manager; it includes system time and date stamps as well).

A Step-by-Step Guide for Using SuccessFactors

One major difference between SAP ERP HCM Performance Management and SuccessFactors Performance Management is the way the objectives and goals are set up and maintained.

In the SAP ERP HCM Performance Management on-premise solution, you cannot maintain goals; only objectives can be maintained. The approvals are made for all objectives in the document. Individual objectives cannot be tracked.

In SuccessFactors Performance Management, goals can be created and maintained. These goals can be individually tracked and aligned.

Based on the user role and authorizations, the home page layout can be configured by the SuccessFactors administrator. The look and feel of the home page can further be customized by the particular user. The home page also displays a to-do list that provides a listing of what you to need to do across all SuccessFactors applications.

The user can access the SuccessFactors Performance Management by clicking the Home button (Figure 1) and selecting Performance.

Figure 1

SuccessFactors Performance Management landing page

If the document is not yet set up, you can use the set-up wizard to set up the template.

The set-up wizard takes you through a step-by-step process to create the appraisal template. These steps are displayed as bread crumbs at the top of the page (Figure 2).

Figure 2

The road map for creating the appraisal template

The SuccessFactors application takes you through the process to create SMART Goals. When you are creating a goal using the SMART Goal wizard (Figure 3), SuccessFactors helps you in developing effective objectives. When you enter the goal, the Goal Wizard displays a listing of potential phrase options for you to use. This is a very nifty feature that helps you to craft goals that have specific details.

Figure 3

Create SMART Goals

During the goal planning phase, you can create job-related behaviors and assign them to the document. You can create competencies as well and assign them to employees. To create competencies, SuccessFactors provides a tool called Writing Assistant (Figure 4), which is a library of competencies (delivered by SuccessFactors) for managers to use.

Figure 4

Creating competencies using Writing Assistant

These competencies are very descriptive and are a very useful feature. You can write your own competencies if you decide not to use the delivered Writing Assistant, and you can decide what scales to use to evaluate the objectives.

As shown in Figure 5, you can add descriptions to narrate what these rating scales mean. As a best practice, SuccessFactors recommends that you use a 1 to 5 rating scale.

Figure 5

Rating scale descriptions

Once you have created the goals and assigned the rating scales, you can now prepare the template for the mid-year review process.

If you want to collect feedback from the peers of the employee for their mid-year review, SuccessFactors provides a few options (Figure 6). As shown in Figure 6, you can choose any of the delivered options and the process is followed as per the selection.

Figure 6

Preparing for the mid-year review

For the mid-year review process, you can set the dates of the review period (providing that the date for the mid-year review is absent in SAP EPR HCM Performance Management), as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7

Setting dates for the mid-year review process

Once you have completed the template set-up, you can create the appraisal documents for the appropriate employees. SuccessFactors has a neat feature that allows you to upload a file containing the employees’ names (and other relevant details) and SuccessFactors automatically creates the appraisal documents for those employees. (You can view a copy of the file format in this download: User Export Download.)

SuccessFactors also provides a facility to communicate the appraisal process and what actions need to be completed (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Message to communicate about the upcoming appraisal process

As part of this functionality, SuccessFactors also provides sample messages that can be communicated and sent out to the employees. You can also craft a Welcome message that is displayed when employees log into the BizX application to begin the appraisal process.

During the year, the employee or the manager can update the appraisal document with the progress status of the employee’s goals.

When managers log into the application, the Manager Assistant (similar to the Personal Object Work List [POWL] tables in SAP ERP HCM Performance Management) enables them to view the appraisal document’s direct reports (Figure 9). By clicking the employee’s name, the name card of the employee is displayed which gives the manager a complete snapshot of the employee.

Figure 9

Manager Assistant

SuccessFactors provides a number of new functionalities that bring greater efficiency and transparency in the appraisal process. The user interface and functionalities, like Writing Assistant and Legal Scan, helps managers to write better and provide more helpful feedback and comments.

Table 1 is a list of what SuccessFactors functionalities are available during each phase of the appraisal process.

Table 1

SuccessFactors employee appraisal functionalities

Venki Krishnamoorthy

Venki Krishnamoorthy is an author, speaker, and SAP ERP HCM talent management solutions subject-matter expert. He is currently an independent SAP ERP HCM functional consultant. Venki has over 10 years of experience as a functional lead, project manager, and program manager in the HCM space. Besides implementing SAP HCM solutions, he has implemented and acted as a trusted advisor on SAP ERP HCM talent management implementations, including E-Recruiting, HCM Performance Management, Succession Planning, SAP Talent Visualization by Nakisa, Learning Solutions, and Employee Self-Service and Manager Self-Services. He is the coauthor of three books: E-Recruiting with SAP ERP HCM, SAP ERP HCM Infotypes: Your Quick Reference to HR Infotypes, and SAP Transaction Codes: Your Quick Reference to T-Codes in SAP ERP.

You may contact the author at krish.venki1@gmail.com.

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