4 Best Performance Objective Software for HR Teams

In this article:

1. Why Most Goal Setting Fails & How to Fix It
2. The 4 Best Performance Objective Softwares for HR Teams
3. FAQs on Performance Objective 

Better Performance Objectives: Why Most Goal Setting Fails & How to Fix It

Setting clear goals is critical for success. When done right, they build momentum for growth by unifying a team’s actions under one strategic vision.

Yet, as we’ve all experienced at one time or another, 92% of people fail to meet the goals they set. 

So, the pertinent question is: why? Why does most goal setting fail?

One study from Economist Impact shows that 90% of senior executives admit their goals fail because of implementation shortfalls—they don’t deliver on proposed objectives well.

We believe this happens because when goals are set, there is:

1. Insufficient buy-in: Clear communication & alignment with wider business strategy
2. Inadequate resources: What budget and skill are available?
3. Lack of clarity: What specific actions must be taken? Why?
4. No involvement: Individuals don’t feel considered in the goal setting process.

Without all three, the new year gets under way, goals get forgotten, and three months later, a check-in discovers the team has fallen short yet again.

How do you counter these implementation shortfalls?

Our People Science team believes it’s all in how transparent senior leadership can be and how aligned the entire organization is on the goals that are set:

“Your people want to make a difference for the business—they want to set and achieve meaningful goals. But to do this, they need to know what they’re expected to deliver and how it aligns to the needs of the business. So leadership teams need to be more transparent about the goals getting set at the top. That way employees are empowered to set goals that feed into key business aims.  When everyone moves in the same direction your business can go further, faster. But if everyone’s pulling in different directions, all you get is stagnant tension.” Gaurav Chaubey, People Science Leaderat Mesh

In practice that looks like:

1. Communicate high-level business objectives
2. Have managers reflect and set team-level objectives
3. Ensure those cascade down to specific objectives per employee
4. Offer continuous clarity around performance expectations & progress
5. Check in continuously to monitor and track progress on that goal
6. Create automations so goals adjust in a dynamic way

It sounds simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. 

Which is why modern companies lean on goal management technologies to communicate, track, improve, and align organizational goals. 

Dedicated software’s create an agile goal management environment, where team members are encouraged to review goals set across the business, set ones in alignment with all the others, update them regularly, and hold meaningful conversations with managers about them in 1:1s.

They make them impossible to “set and forget”, instead they bring goals to the forefront of employees minds. 

Want to learn more about modern Performance Objective Software? In this article, we’ll explore what it is and the tools that help put it into practice.

The 4 Best Performance Objective Softwares for HR Teams

Jump through the tools to find the one that’s right for you:

• Mesh - The Best Employee Performance Objective Software
• Monday.com - The Best Project Management Performance Objective Software
• Goalscape - The Best Goal Setting Performance Objective Software
• Fellow - The Best Meeting Focused Performance Objective Software

1. Mesh.AI - The Best Employee Performance Objective Software

Mesh is a performance objective software built to enable performance in every one of your people so that impactful goals don’t just get set, they actually get achieved. 

The software helps employees set goals in alignment with the wider business strategy and actively nudges them to measure progress and have continuous, meaningful conversations. 

Your employees will be supported by an AI copilot called Maven, which:

1. Helps set better goals
2. Encourages more frequent performance updates
3. Supports more productive check-ins (+1 for manager effectiveness)
4. Pushes team mates to give continuous feedback so goals are met faster

Team-wide transparency ensures accountability—so goals get implemented correctly, which as we know from earlier is the biggest reason goals fail in the workplace. 

You can even customise how often your team is nudged to update their progress on goals. So if you want updates weekly, twice a month, or monthly, you can set it up exactly to your organisation's preferences. 

And as those goals are measured, you’ll get instant oversight on if they’re ‘on track’, ‘off track’ or ‘at risk’ depending on how they’ve been updated and the timeline left for completion:

Mesh’s Key Features

With Mesh, your people truly have the support they need to set and complete goals. All thanks to the platforms suite of features, which include:

• Business-aligned goal setting that can be customised to the methodologies your company uses.

With Mesh, you can choose from goal setting templates on the Mesh platform and adapt them to your own process. 

You’ll also be able to get oversight on employee goals and be able to re-align them should the business needs change:

• Continuous feedback that signals to employees where they can improve and what behaviours they should continue displaying (in the pursuit of goals).

That feedback feeds into the competencies employees are actively working toward. Managers can also capitalise on employee momentum by celebrating goal milestones through the Mesh praise feature.

• 1:1s that empower managers to touch base on employee goals and coach them on their development. 

It even will take notes for them they can revisit later and ensure these conversations happen regularly. 

In fact, teams that conduct 1:1s on Mesh see a ~64% increase in completion rates over legacy performance management systems.

And where there are bottlenecks that threaten goal progress, managers and employees are able to work through them in 1:1s.

• Development of capabilities where employees are told what skills they need and given a way to track them. 

Your people don’t always have the skills they need to achieve what the business needs them to. Mesh helps them grow into their performance potential by highlighting the capabilities they need to work on, tracking how they’re progressing within those capabilities, and in some cases helps managers and leaders plug large gaps with hiring. 

• Mesh’s AI Maven who coaches managers and employees on how to write high-quality goals in line with business objectives.

Effective goal setting is a skill.

Maven coaches your employees to develop that skill in real-time by prompting them on what ‘good’ looks like, saving you hours of training and ensuring the right goals get set from the onset.

Mesh Pricing

At Mesh, we offer three pricing tiers: 

• Base: $4 per user, per month
• Premium: $7 per user, per month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing 

You can see what features are included in each:

What Customer's Think

Read how one of our users relies on Mesh to set goals, track progress, and stay in alignment from top to bottom of the org chart:

Or hear from Anant, one of our enterprise client’s, who shares in this video how much value he gets from the goal setting feature on Mesh.

Want to read more about first-hand experiences with the product? Check out our G2 profile.

Or maybe you want to see Mesh in action? We’d love to give you a personalised demo of the product.

2. Monday.com - The Best Project Management Performance Objective Software

Monday.com is a versatile and user-friendly project management tool designed to help teams streamline workflows, track the progress of projects, and achieve performance objectives efficiently. 

Unlike Mesh, it’s not focused on performance enablement. Instead it’s designed to make the day to day managing of projects easier. And projects, when chosen and implemented correctly, are what feed goals. 

You can set goals in the platform and update the status of projects related to those goals between ‘working on it’, ‘stuck’, and ‘done’ but it won’t flag if goals are at risk or on track for completion. For that reason, we worry employees will fall into the ‘set and forget’ mindset.

‍

Here’s an overview of what makes Monday.com a strong contender for the best project management performance objective software: 

Monday.com Key Features

• Customizable Workflows: Monday.com allows users to create custom workflows that match their team's way of working, making it easier to manage tasks, projects, and deadlines.
• Collaboration Tools: The platform facilitates seamless communication within teams, enabling members to share files, discuss projects in context, and collaborate in real-time.
• Visual Project Tracking: With its intuitive interface, Monday.com provides visual project tracking through boards that can be customised with different columns to track the progress of tasks, timelines, and milestones.

Core Use Cases for Monday.com

• Project Management: Teams can manage their projects from start to finish, tracking progress and ensuring that deadlines are met.
• Task Management: Individuals and teams can keep track of their tasks, set priorities, and manage their workload more effectively.
• Resource Management: Monday.com can be used to allocate resources efficiently, ensuring that team members are not overburdened and projects have what they need to succeed.

Monday.com Pricing

Monday.com offers 5 pricing tiers.

It’s first is completely free but also very limited in features and scalability. It only accommodates up to 2 users and ‘3 boards’.

The rest are:

• Basic at $8 per user/per month
• Standard at $11 per user/per month
• Pro at $17 per user/per month
• Enterprise at a custom price

These prices only apply to accounts up to 50 people. Any more than that and you must contact their sales team. 

3. Goalscape - The Best Goal Setting Performance Objective Software

Goalscape is a performance objective software that stands out for its visual approach to setting, tracking, and achieving goals. 

It is designed to help individuals and teams visualise their objectives in a clear, interactive format, making it easier to understand priorities and progress. They use a circular format to set goals and see the overview of resources and actions that go toward that goal.

The centre is the main goal, surrounded by a layer of sub goals. As you progress on the goal, you’ll see that progress by shading on the circle. The size of each section also reflects its importance.

We love how unique this visualisation method is and the ability to see how each sub task feeds into the main one. We’d love it even more if it had features to keep goal setters accountable with nudges or reminders built-in to track progress regularly. 

Goalscape Key Features

• Visual Goal Mapping: Goalscape uses a distinctive circular interface that represents goals as a series of concentric circles, with the main objective at the centre and sub-goals radiating outward. This visual representation helps to clarify the hierarchy and interrelationships between goals.
• Customizable Views: Users can adjust the visualisation to focus on specific areas, allowing for a detailed view of individual goals or a broader overview of all objectives.
• Progress Tracking: Each goal can be assigned specific metrics, allowing users to track their progress visually. This feature helps in maintaining motivation and focus.

Core Use Cases for Goalscape

• Strategic Planning: Ideal for visualising and managing the strategic objectives of an organisation.
• Personal Development: Individuals can use it for setting and achieving personal goals, such as career progression or skill development.
• Project Management: Teams can break down projects into manageable objectives, clarifying tasks and responsibilities.

Goalscape Pricing

Goalscape comes with a free trial followed by a ‘Pro’ account for $8.25 per user/per month. They also offer an enterprise package that starts at $2,148 per year. 

4. Fellow - The Best Meeting Focused Performance Objective Software

Fellow is a meeting management and team collaboration software that focuses on maximising the productivity and effectiveness of meetings.

It's designed to ensure meetings lead to actionable outcomes and contribute positively towards achieving performance objectives. It even lets you set OKRs on the platform and link them to meeting notes. 

We love that Fellow helps teams make meetings more manageable and effective. After all, so much can happen in a meeting that action items often get missed if not documented properly. 

Fellow Key Features

• Goal Tracking: Fellow integrates goal tracking into the meeting process, allowing teams to review and update on objectives during their meetings, ensuring alignment and focus on performance objectives.
• Action Items Tracking: During or after meetings, users can assign action items with deadlines, making it easy to track progress on deliverables and hold participants accountable.
• Agenda Management: Fellow allows users to create collaborative agendas for meetings, ensuring that all participants are prepared and know what to expect. This feature encourages participation and keeps meetings structured and focused.

Core Use Cases for Fellow

• Project Management Meetings: Planning, update, and retrospective meetings can be more effective, ensuring that projects stay on track and objectives are met.
• Cross-Functional Team Meetings: Helps cross-functional teams align on objectives, track progress, and collaborate more effectively across departments.
• Strategy and Planning Sessions: Ideal for strategy meetings where teams align on goals, set priorities, and plan for the execution of key initiatives.

Fellow Pricing

Fellow has a basic version on offer for free. But if you want to make the most of it’s features you’ll need at least the Pro plan.

Here are their packages:

• Pro at $7 per user/per month if billed annually
• Business at $10 per user/per month if billed annually
• Enterprise at a custom pricing, starting at 10 users

Summary: 4 Best Performance Objective Software Providers

Common FAQs About Performance Objective Software

Below we’ve answered the most commonly asked question we get relating to performance objectives and performance objective software. 

What is an example of a performance objective?

A performance objective is a clear, specific, measurable goal that is designed to improve the performance of an individual, team, or organisation. 

For example, a performance objective for a sales team member could be: "Increase sales of Product X by 15% over the next quarter compared to the previous quarter."

This objective is specific (focuses on Product X), measurable (15% increase), achievable (assuming the target is realistic), relevant (to the sales team's goals), and time-bound (over the next quarter).

What is an OKR?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. 

It is a goal-setting framework used by organisations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes. 

An OKR consists of an Objective, which is a clearly defined goal, and Key Results, which are specific measures used to track the achievement of that goal. 

For example, an Objective could be "Improve customer satisfaction", and Key Results could be "Achieve a customer satisfaction score of 90%" and "Reduce customer support ticket resolution time by 25%." 

OKRs help organisations focus on major goals and ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives.

The following diagram explains the hierarchy of goals on Mesh using the OKR framework:

How to set performance goals for managers?

Managers play a key role in goal setting, often leading the team on what they’ll collectively aim for and supporting individuals as they set their own. 

But in truth, setting performance goals is the same whether a manager or a regular employee. 

We recommend following these simple steps when setting goals your team can implement, measure, and achieve:

1. Align with Organisational Objectives: Start by ensuring that the goals are aligned with the broader objectives of the organisation.
2. Use SMART Criteria: Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This criterion helps in creating clear and actionable objectives.
3. Focus on Key Areas: Identify the key areas that will make the most tangible difference to the team and organisational performance. It’s not just that you achieve your goal, it’s about WHAT you achieve. 
4. Ensure Collaboration and Support: Make sure the manager has the resources, support, and collaboration needed from peers and superiors to achieve these goals. This could involve training, budget allocation, or mentorship.
5. Review and Adjust Regularly: Performance goals should not be static. Regular reviews and adjustments are necessary to account for changes in the business environment and team dynamics.