Our next color paper takes a closer look at the talent ‘asset’ and the problems it’s given businesses in the past. We also look at new and improved ways for managers to keep track of who they’ve got working for them (and what they’re up to) in order to make better decisions.

Read the ‘Talent Science’ color paper online or download from

http://www.sonar6.com/colorpapers/talent-science

In the second of our color papers we look at ways performance reviews can be made more motivational (it is possible!) and useful for all involved…

Read the ‘Motivational performance reviews (and other oxymorons)’ color paper online or download from

http://www.sonar6.com/colorpapers/motivation

Sonar6 has recently undergone an internal restructure so we can increase focus on development capability and customer service. There have been some staffing changes and we have some new staff members to introduce…

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In our inaugural color paper we present 5 key reasons why performance management isn’t quite working, and introduce a few ways to fix it…

Read the ‘I Met Expectations’ color paper online or download from http://www.sonar6.com/colorpapers/i-met-expectations

We thought we’d share this cool idea for engaging your teams with Sonar6. This one came from Amanda at Vitaco, one of our Kiwi customers.

Teams race each other along the performance review track, completing tasks that range from learning the Sonar6 basics to reviewing competencies and having the performance conversation. Everyone gets their own gummi to race with – the best looking personalised gummi gets a prize – and the first team across the finish line takes top honours.

A great way to have bit of fun while keeping everyone on track!

Because Sonar6 is so easy to configure to individual organizations, it’s easy to get carried away tweaking the system and making heaps of cool changes. However, we’ve found that keeping it simple pays off in terms of increased engagement (ie, people don’t get bogged down in detail and actually want to use it!)

Our configuration recommendations are the result of several years working with a really diverse range of organizations. Basically, we’ve discovered that customers who introduce too many changes really complicate the process for the administrators who set up Sonar6, for people doing their performance reviews, and for the poor souls who have to analyse all the extra information…

The standard Sonar6 configuration (which is what you can see in the free trial or Quick Start plans) is really the optimal setup in terms of information and complexity: numbers of role types, factors, goals etc. We advise organizations who want to configure Sonar6 to use the standard configuration as a guideline – everyone we’ve helped has seen better results that way.

We are aware that organizations coming to Sonar6 with existing performance management programs might require a little more tweaking to translate their data into Sonar6 form. That’s definitely doable; we have Implementation Consultants who can advise how to best make it happen – while keeping your configuration manageable.

In his recent article on Purpose Built Analytic Applications, Vish Agashe singled out Sonar6 as an example: developed to address a specific business area (performance), delivered via a purpose-built UI, and with holistic data visualisation and analytic capability. He predicts there’ll be more of these types of applications developed as we see increased business need for data visualisation to assist in decision making.

It’s an interesting piece and well worth a read!

Mike recently spoke with Dave Lavinsky over at Growthink about the importance of performance reviews. Even if your company’s tiny and you think you have better things to spend your time on, you should still be reviewing your people (they’ll thank you in the end).

Check it out!

Steve Boese is one of the more prominent HR experts in the socialmediasphere, and recently had some rather lovely things to say about Sonar6 .

“Sonar6 … possesses what is likely the most unique and innovative user interface in the market. The interaction and flexibility of the applications make managing employee performance and developing reviews almost fun.  Sonar6 also has a very refreshing and sort of offbeat approach to marketing and publicity that is a welcome change in what can be a very staid market.”

Lovely.

Now go and read the rest of Steve’s views on developments in HR tech!

Sonar6 has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the Asia Pacific region, thanks to a whopping 704% revenue growth over the past three years.

The Deloitte Fast 500 Program recognizes those technology companies with the fastest rates of annual revenue growth from 2006 to 2008.  At number 40, Sonar6 came in third out of 51 New Zealand companies named in this year’s list. Congratulations to our fellow Kiwi top-50ers: NextWindow, Telesmart and TracMap!

It’s a fantastic result – Sonar6’s phenomenal growth has been both exciting and challenging, so our ongoing success is a great testament to the team’s hard work over the past few years (and proof that our commitment to providing really useful performance reviews is paying off!)

It’s great to be recognized: we’ve added a lot of new clients in 2009, and our 2010 forecast shows excellent opportunities to continue our success in the USA and Australasia.

Can we get a w00t?