Employee Database
	Performance Appraisal of Employees

Making Small Business Management Easier Using Today's Technology

Necessity Is The Mother of Invention

Data-Aide^TM and Evalu-Aide^TM (a companion product) were developed to aid me in improving my own small business.

We have done peer reviews internally for a few years, and for a company of less than 20 employees, it would take our typist hours to enter the data, or cost us several hundreds of dollars to have an outside service perform the function. Also, our employee data was usually in someone's desk drawer and (try as we might), we weren't always sure it was locked.

Another issue was that the bookkeeper kept certain data on salary and benefits, while I as the sales manager kept other data on employee performance. As a result, the two sets of data didn't often correspond in completeness or availability.

I needed a way of reducing the burden of collating peer reviews and at the same time, archiving and retrieving critical employee data. In addition, I wanted a system that was integrated, so that information entered in one area would show up in the other.

There were several popular software products on the market which we reviewed. Generally, the available product tended to fall into two categories, either an employee database, or a performance appraisal program.

The appraisal software I saw either generated rather stilted "politically correct" language, or was totally free form in nature. Also, the appraisal software mostly offered the traditional one-on-one review format, where I wanted to do a "peer" process. Usually, this software rarely offered much human resource data capture.

The databases were generally adequate, but again, if they did offer a review module, it tended to be pretty lightweight. There are a few integrated packages on the market, but these tended to be pretty expensive.

Not able to find and purchase the right solution for my business, I decided to build one. The Evalu-Aide and Data-Aide applications evolved and grew out of our need to implement processes and develop solutions to better manage employee performance and to have all the information necessary to support decisions in a secure, yet accessible location.

Is Evalu-Aide and Data-Aide the answer to all your needs? Absolutely not! However, either one or both working together will get you started in a very positive direction. It takes time and discipline to keep the data accurate and current. While the programs offer you a framework to log critical data and conduct performance evaluations, they won't keep you out of jail if you fire someone for the wrong reason, no matter how well you documented it.

They will however give you an opportunity to communicate with your employees on their performance in a more objective manner. They will allow you to retrieve that anniversary list, or pull together an insurance census, figure out the total cost of benefits for each employee, or find the one employee with that special skill more quickly.

Just as implementing Evalu-Aide and Data-Aide will be an evolutionary process for you, this version of the software will also need to evolve. I realize that we are dealing with a moving target in Human Resources. We both know that the demands of the government and various regulatory agencies, or our own internal needs will require different data to be captured in the future. Consequently, data management and access procedures will need to change.

I sincerely hope that you will provide me your feedback for future enhancements.

Larry Goode, President
Goode Enterprises, Inc.