Many companies describe their performance management software as rigid. But, I don’t think an HR professional would ever select a rigid solution on day one.
Perhaps the software was right for that moment in time, but then the company changed in some way. Maybe the company grew bigger or adopted a different mindset towards employees, identified new drivers of performance or some other shift since the software was implemented.
Then, when trying to update the software to match the new environment - things hit a wall. It can't be changed, it wasn’t designed for that use case or the permissions don’t work that way. The software is now ‘rigid’.
But, employees don’t describe it as rigid.
Employees describe it through their lens, as ‘meaningless’ or ‘tick-box’ because it’s disconnected from the way they work.This situation used to play out over many years (and that was kind of ok), but in today's world where things change quickly, it can play out in just months. The world seemed to go from 'the great resignation' to 'please give me a job' in under a year.
In my opinion, this all points toward an agile mindset for HR processes and the employee experience, where processes are continuously evolving to keep up with employee feedback and shifts in context. And of course, the tech needs to keep up too, a fixed product or best practice solution is only relevant for a moment in time. Without the flexibility to adapt to a changing world, the tech will quickly be labelled rigid, or worse, meaningless.