4 Top Continuous Performance Management Platforms in 2024

The HR tech industry is filled with performance management platforms. Finding the right one is often (sadly) a case of expensive trial and error. 

You commit to a lengthy contract, get everyone onboarded, and are excited to have a win under your belt—only to find the tool doesn’t do what it’s meant to, enable and improve performance. 

Once your contract is up, you try another ‘industry leading’ tool. And you’re left disappointed again. 

This world of people & performance is a difficult one to navigate.

We want to help you navigate it (without wading through a long list of poorly researched tools).

So we’ve compiled a shortlist of the four best continuous performance management tools on the market—ones we know well, and can reflect on from experience.

Full transparency, we’re kicking this list off with our own product, Mesh, we work a little different and I think we'll impress you. But I also want to make it clear that this article won't dump on our competitors. We can acknowledge their strengths and the situations where they’re a better fit than we are. 

The Continuous Performance Management Platforms We'll Review

I'll show you how each of these four work, an honest review of its features, and real user reviews:

• Mesh - Best For Continuous Manager Effectiveness & Employee Performance
• Lattice - Best For Culture and Engagement
• Reflektive - Best For Values Based Recognition
• 15Five - Best For Finding External Performance Coaching

But before we dive in, I asked our People Science team to share their expertise on what makes a *genuinely* useful tool for continuous performance management.

Jump ahead:

1. Analysis: 4 Factors You Should Look For
2. Review: Our 4 Top Continuous Performance Management Tools

Four Factors to Look for in Your Continuous Performance Management Software (Experts Weigh-In)

We asked our People Science team two questions:

1. What is the modern HR team struggling with when it comes to managing performance?
2. And what should they look for in their continuous performance management tool?

When it comes to what HR teams are going through, they said:

• Simple review and reward processes aren’t enough. To develop and retain high performers companies need something more continuous (Adobe scrapped their reviews as far back as 2012). 
• Modern employee expectations are high. Especially younger generations, they want to be continuously empowered, engaged, and upskilled by their managers. And high performers know they’ve got options.
• Expensive off-site and classroom training for managers are often ineffective. Improving manager’s ability to develop their employees is hugely important, but the on-the-ground implementation of those lessons is <10% (teaching is quickly forgotten unless implemented).
• Rapid technological innovation (*cough* AI *cough*) requires agile companies. In 2023, we’ve seen so many 500-employee companies crumble overnight. The reason? The inability to pivot company goals toward market demand (and for employees to pivot just as quickly).

Luckily, they also told us these problems can be solved with the help of an effective continuous performance management tool. 

To ensure yours does, these are the four factors they’d consider when selecting a tool.

Factor 1: Facilitates continuous feedback and employee development

A continuous performance management tool should make feedback part of an organization’s day to day. And it should equip employees to tie that feedback to specific capabilities the organization and the employee needs to perform.

This approach ensures feedback is frequent, meaningful, and directly tied to personal and organizational growth objectives.

Factor 2: Ensures performance reviews are effective and unbiased

Opt for a tool that guarantees performance reviews are effective and free from bias. 

This helps in creating a fair, transparent, and comprehensive evaluation environment, where decisions are based on merit and factual evidence, fostering trust and equity within the organization.‍

Factor 3: Drives employees to set goals aligned to the needs of the business

The tool should allow for easy setting, updating, and tracking of individual and team goals aligned with organizational objectives. 

It should provide visibility into progress and challenges, enabling managers and employees to make adjustments as needed. This keeps everyone focused and working towards the same targets.

Factor 4: Provides HR and Managers with data and insights for better decision-making

Analytics play a crucial role in understanding performance trends, identifying training needs, and making informed decisions. 

A good Continuous Performance Management tool should offer comprehensive reporting and analytics features that provide insights into individual and team performance. 

This data can help HR teams and managers identify areas of strength, areas for improvement, and the impact of interventions over time.

In this article:

In this article, I’ll introduce you to Mesh—our own continuous performance management tool—and I’ll show you how it excels in the above areas. 

I'll also list three alternative tools to help you decide if they’re for you.

Let's dive in.

1. Mesh - The Best Continuous Performance Management Software for Enabling Manager & Employee Performance

📌 Mesh doesn’t just excel in continuously monitoring and measuring performance, it excels in equipping teams to improve their performance a little bit everyday for BIG long term results.

Let’s look at how:

With Mesh, you get the exact continuous management features you need to manage and measure performance:

• Goal setting and alignment 
• Manager-employee check-ins (1:1s)
• Performance tracking 
• Period reviews
• Continuous employee feedback
• Capability tracking 
• Engagement and employee sentiment surveys
• Detailed analytics 

And it improves your people’s performance by enabling them to:

• Form positive habits every day that improve performance (via “nudges”).
• Have continuous (and better) conversations with peers and managers about their performance and development.
• Improve manager effectiveness—turn them into daily coaches, not "badly done period performance review" experts.
• Target their development toward the capabilities that will make the biggest difference in their and the organization’s performance 

This combination leaves behind the traditional, ineffective approach to performance management and embraces a continuous process where managers and employees have the support, alignment, and tools they need to improve.

→ Factor 1: How Mesh facilitates continuous feedback and employee development

Continuous performance management requires your team to continuously give feedback and develop off the back of receiving it. This goes for constructive criticism and praise. 

Mesh makes this possible by ‘nudging’ managers and colleagues to write feedback as and when they should. It does so through the platform and integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams. That way, no matter where they’re working, they’re getting prompted to take action. 

When writing the feedback, the Mesh AI Coaching co-pilot ‘Maven’ is there to provide tips and even help rewrite feedback into more effective structures and phrasing. 

This approach elevates the quality of communication and reduces any apprehension associated with giving feedback.

Employees also gain access to a real-time dashboard of their strengths and areas for improvement against specific capabilities, fostering a culture of self-awareness and continuous development. 

Teams that leverage praise and advice on Mesh see a ~138% boost in feedback inputs throughout the year over traditional periodic review/feedback cycles.

Learn more about our Continuous Feedback Feature. Or check out how we support People Development here.

→ Factor 2: How Mesh ensures performance reviews are effective and unbiased

Mesh recognizes the critical role that performance reviews play in decisions regarding raises, promotions, and overall employee development. 

To support your company's unique approach to these reviews, Mesh's performance review feature is highly customizable, ensuring it fits perfectly with your process.

As the review period approaches, Mesh equips your employees with comprehensive data from past check-ins, 1:1s, and feedback—both given and received. This wealth of information serves as a foundation for an unbiased and thorough review, offering multiple perspectives on performance.

To further ensure objectivity and effectiveness, Mesh guides users on how to construct and phrase their reviews. 

The platform's AI prompts help structure feedback to be clear, constructive, and focused on growth. This approach minimizes bias and fosters a culture of honest, productive feedback.

And at the end of the performance review cycle, Mesh offers an automated summary of organizational performance. 

This streamlines the review process and eliminates the need for cumbersome spreadsheets or lengthy meetings.

Teams that run reviews/feedback cycles on Mesh see a ~42% drop in grievance reports on the final feedback reports.

→ Factor 3: How Mesh drives employees to set goals aligned to the needs of the business

Mesh’s goal setting function ensures every team is aligned, up to date on progress, and  clear on the expectations set before them. So that goals get monitored, achieved, and iterated on over time.

Mesh's automation and AI-driven nudges keep employees focused on their objectives by reminding them to report their progress at regular intervals. This feature addresses one of the primary concerns around goal setting: ensuring follow-through.

Mesh also provides managers with transparent oversight of team progress. This visibility helps them identify hurdles early on and address them proactively.

Teams that manage goals on Mesh achieve ~22% higher achievement of team and individual goals than legacy performance management systems.

→ Factor 4: How Mesh provides HR and Managers with data and insights for better decision-making

Mesh empowers HR teams and managers with comprehensive data and insights, eliminating the need for guesswork or assumptions in decision-making processes. 

By leveraging the rich data collected through the platform—from goals and feedback to performance reviews and capability development—leaders have access to a holistic view of employee performance and sentiment.

This data also comes from regular surveys designed to capture the true sentiment of employees, with Mesh providing a suite of templates to streamline this process. 

Beyond structured surveys, Mesh offers a way for employees to share their thoughts at any time, anonymously if they choose. This gives HR a genuine and real-time pulse on company culture and employee engagement.

Organizations that leverage Mesh recommended templates for employee listening see a ~14% boost in talent’s average tenure.

Learn more about our Engagement Features to see how they’ll improve your ongoing People strategy.

Mesh Pros, Cons, and User Reviews

When reviewing what our uses have to say, a few pros and cons stand out:

Pros:

• Improved 1:1 management where managers feel empowered and informed
• Management of goals with the ability to set, measure, and stay on track.
• Automation of performance analysis, saving managers and HR from clunky, time-consuming excel sheets

Cons:

• Unable to download documents and data from the platform
• Lack of employee onboarding specific features
• Employees who are collaborators for goals can edit targets

Real Reviews From Mesh users:

Want to see our platform in action? We'd love to show you. Book a product tour with our team here.

Mesh Pricing

Our pricing is designed to meet different needs and scale as you do. 

We offer three tiers*: Base, Premium, and Enterprise.

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

You can see what features are included in each:

→ Want a tool that facilitates continuous performance management? Get in touch with us for a demo of the product.

2. Lattice: A Great Continuous Performance Management Platform for Culture and Engagement Surveys

Lattice is a performance management tool helping HR teams improve employee engagement and sentiment in real time. 

You can use its surveys to identify problems in your culture and address them before they negatively impact the performance of your people. 

We especially love how Lattice helps HR teams to build and implement action plans off the back of survey results. 

For example, if an engagement survey showed multiple people were struggling to find time to have 1:1s with their managers, you could strategize a way for the company to prioritize this time in everyone’s schedules.

Lattice also has features that link your company’s compensation strategy to the achievements of your people, onboard employees faster, create individual development plans, and set team OKRs. 

Lattice Pros, Cons, and User Reviews

Pros:

• Clear visibility into how performance impacts compensation, promoting transparency and trust within the organization.
•  Organizations can tailor performance metrics and goals to fit their unique needs
• Users rave about the 1:1 features (ability to schedule, prep, and review) 

Review from a Lattice user:

“We find Lattice user interface to be intuitive and user friendly. It's easy for employees to navigate and access the information they need quickly. Custom optimization options allowed us to tailor our specific performance management process and metrics, which has been a significant advantage.”

Cons:

• Many desirable features are ‘add-ons’ making the tool expensive
• Often delays in promised product improvements
• Cost 
  

Review from a Lattice user:

“Unfortunately Lattice has had some pretty bad misses on their product roadmap and delivery. They made some lofty promises (getting weighted review score calculations out by Jan 2024, launching hidden talent reviews in Q2, enabling group 1:1s in Q2 etc) that have ALL been postponed, delayed, or the launch was very disappointing in my opinion. Lattice apparently laid off quite a few Engineers in Q1'23 which probably impacted their ability to meet their product updates/enhancements roadmap. I have hopes that they'll turn it around, but this has been pretty disappointing thus far.”

Lattice Pricing

Lattice’s pricing starts at $8 per user, per month for a base package which can be either ‘Performance Management’ or ‘OKRs & Goals’. 

You can also bundle those two packages for $11 per person, per month.

Any features on top of that comes at additional costs:

For every feature, you’d spend $25 per user, per month. If you’re a 250 person organization that could be about $75,000 a year.

3. Reflektive: The Best Continuous Performance Management Tool for Values Based Recognition

Reflektive is a continuous performance management tool that believes retention and improved performance are a result of meaningful recognition.

Because of this they have features focused on acknowledging the efforts of employees regularly and publicly. We love that it even ties that praise into company values. 

When employees know how they and others are contributing to company culture, they’re more likely to repeat those behaviors. That creates a loop of desired behavior in your organization. 

Of course, as a performance management tool, Reflektive also has features for goals, feedback, 1:1s, and surveys. 

It’s a solid option for organizations who want to improve performance through values based behavior. 

Pros, Cons, and User Reviews

Pros:

• Contributions are recognized in alignment with organizational values, enhancing motivation and engagement
• Makes it simple for employees to receive acknowledgment alongside constructive feedback
• Users find Reflektive's platform intuitive and easy to navigate

Review from a Reflektive user:

“Using Reflektive to thank a coworker is so much better than just sending them an email because they get recognized by the whole company and can also cash in their points for rewards! This tool empowers every employee to recognize the people that have done stellar work!”

Cons:

• Some features have a steep learning curve, requiring additional training
• Certain users report difficulties in integrating Reflektive with existing HR systems
• Pricing can be a hurdle for smaller organizations or those with limited budgets
  

Review from a Reflektive user:

“I do not like how buttons and actions are hidden. I think these should be in plain sight. I would also like to be able to choose full teams/departments and not have to enter individual names when working through adding folks for quarterly reviews.”

Reflektive Pricing

Unfortunately, Reflektive doesn’t publicly state its pricing. 

4. 15Five: The Best Continuous Performance Management Tool for Coaching

15Five is a continuous performance management tool with management training and coaching built-in. 

They recognize, like Mesh does, that much of performance comes down to how effective managers are in leading and supporting their teams. 

Managers on 15Five can connect with coaches, follow curated learning pathways, and take part in bite-size training modules. 

We love this multi-faceted approach to development. 

15Five also has a review process, engagement surveys, and in-depth analytics. 

If you’re a company who wants to invest in management training and a continuous performance management platform, this can be a great option. 

Pros, Cons, and User Reviews

Pros:

• Combines goal tracking with feedback, allowing for real-time progress assessments and adjustments
• Offers extensive resources and training for managers and employees to enhance their coaching and feedback skills
• Customizable check-in questions, enabling organizations to tailor conversations and feedback
  

Review from a 15Five user:

“It's scalable and has some great features that aren't locked behind a higher tier/out of reach of small companies.”

Cons:

• Some users find the full range of features overwhelming at first
• Can be difficult to get in touch with support
• Clunky UX
  

Review from a 15Five user:

“Sometimes the UX feels a bit clunky, and it can be slow to load on occasion. I feel the OKR tracking mechanism could improve, as sometimes it feels complicated to submit them, edit them, and set them up.”

15Five Pricing

15Five’s pricing starts at $4 per user/per month. It’s billed annually. 

It’s broken into 3 tiers:

• Engage: $4 per user/per month
• Perform: $10 per user/per month
• Total Platform: $16 per user/per month

Summary: 4 Best Continuous Performance Management Platforms