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Filter 12 vetted Small Improvements reviews and ratings
Reviews (1-7 of 7)
November 12, 2019
A very simple HR tool with poor goals and 1:1 features
We use Small Improvements across the whole organization. We use the following features for the corresponding activities: 360 feedback; quarterly goals for individuals and managers; 1:1 tool; employee performance reviews.
- The 360 feedback tool is straightforward to use and does exactly what it's meant to do: collect private and public feedback across peers (managers can use it too, of course).
- The 1:1 tool automatically detects 1:1 meetings on your connected Calendar, automatically creates entries for these meetings in the system and reminds you of the upcoming 1:1s.
- The 1:1 tool allows both parties to create a checklist for agenda items and notifies you when the other party added agenda items or general notes.
- While the structured agenda format in the 1:1 tool has advantages, it also limits formatting options that you would otherwise have if you used a plain Google Doc shared with the other person.
- 1:1 tool doesn't let parties add inline notes/comments under each agenda item, which makes it hard to organize notes during the actual meetings.
- 1:1 tool lets you mark agenda items as done, but surprisingly doesn't let you copy or move "unchecked" items to the next meeting if you didn't have time to go over them. Lattice does that.
- 1:1 tool only seems to create an entry for the next meeting on the next day after the current meeting happens. This is inconvenient because I might want to add notes for the future meeting right after my 1:1 happened.
- The goal tool makes people's goals private by default, and there's no way to change that setting. Not good if your company embraces transparency and uses a framework like OKR for goal-setting (which prescribes that everyone's OKR is public).
- The goal tool doesn't automatically compute the overall goal progress based on key results progress.
- The goal tool doesn't seem to support departmental and overall company goals, it only ties goals to individuals. That means you have to keep track of the former somewhere else.
- The goal tool doesn't support setting non-binary progress for key results inside an objective. You can only check or uncheck the entire key result. Not good for OKR. Lattice has much stronger goal-setting features compared to Small Improvements.
November 25, 2019
Simple individual goal software...but lacks group goals and therefore might be redundant for some organizations
My company has Small Improvements for all the departments in the company. Primarily, it is used as a goal tracker and feedback tool. We also use it for quarterly self-assessments.
- Simple to use.
- Easy to make goals, track progress and refer back to past goals.
- The "Your Company" directory is very useful.
- Since the goals are tied to individuals, it does not allow for departmental goals.
- Goals cannot be updated to show how much progress has been made. It is either 0 or 100%.
- The software needs more reminders and nudges.
October 29, 2019
One stop for review, meeting and recognition tracking
We use Small Improvements in three majors ways within our organization. The first is for on the stop recognition of a peer, we have four main values which we live by at our company and whenever someone does something around one of those, they're recognized at our daily stand-up call and it is also recorded in Small Improvements. For this alone, Small Improvements has been an outstanding tool given how easy it is to use. The second way we make use of the tool is to track 1:1 meetings between employees and managers. I meet with my manager every two weeks and we just enter the scheduled call into the Small Improvements site and both my manager and I can add items we'd like to discuss during the call. The outcome of the call is that we track what was discussed and any deliverables. The third major function within our organization is for quarterly and yearly performance reviews where employees can seek 360 feedback, enter their self-assessment and receive their review from their manager. The tool is easy to use for this function, everything is in one spot and easy to track for follow-up and progress reports.
- Instant on-the-spot employee and peer recognition
- 1:1 Meeting tracker
- Yearly performance reviews
- Interface can be cluttered at times
- There isn't a lot of help or knowledge readily available when first using the tool
September 20, 2019
Making check-ins easy
Small Improvements holds our org chart, records employee goals, performance, and is a platform for employees to give each other public praise across the business. It is owned/admin'd by the HR team and used by all employees. We use it to track and ensure regular catch-ups between employees and managers are occurring, for individuals to track their progress against goals and to encourage positive reinforcement with praise.
- The organization chart is really well designed, easy to use, and navigate.
- Tracking 1-1 to meetings between employees and their managers.
- Giving praise to fellow employees for tasks well done - Giving a framework to make this easier.
- Being more mobile-first would be great!
- More nudge reminders.
December 20, 2018
Small Improvements: Functional and useful if a bit basic
Small Improvements is a basic tool that my company uses for end of the year performance reviews and future goal setting. The program is functional and easy to operate. It helps delineate when an employee should put in their self assessment and when the manager should complete their review. It is totally sufficient for what it needs to provide.
- Prompts users with questions to assess their performance
- Reminds people who haven't filled out their reviews
- Keeps record of past reviews and goals in one place
- The interface could use an update
- Doesn't do much more than let employee and manager share reviews with each other, so it could be considered unnecessary
March 29, 2018
Does The Job But Not A Market Leader
We use Small Improvements as a way to send personal feedback to co-workers across the organization. Furthermore, we use Small Improvements to request feedback, provide 1:1 and 360 reviews, there is also a praise wall for users that want to make their positive comments visible to everyone. The tool also keeps track of personal and company goals, it serves as a resource when conducting regular reviews.
- Goal Tracking: Enables users to chart goals, track progress, and provide details about what they want/expect to achieve.
- Praise Wall: A public place to post positive and encouraging comments about other employees.
- 360 Reviews: Users can request and gain 1:1 feedback; this can be anonymous if desired.
- The UI is slow, clunky, and sometimes lags when navigating to different menus.
- When inputting personal reviews many of our users have complained that their content gets removed/deleted while inputting it into the answer boxes.
- Small Improvements is slow on alerting users of updates (i.e. 360 reviews feedback is completed, someone made a comment on the Praise Wall, etc).
February 01, 2018
Small Improvements + Digital Paid Media Agencies
Small Improvements is a great way for us as a company to engage with each other, give and receive feedback, get one-on-one support, meet our personal goals & objectives, and go through performance reviews. It is especially helpful for the review process, as it allows employees to review themselves while managers review them, and keep both reviews free from interference with each other.
- Small Improvements makes it easier to set and achieve professional goals
- Small Improvements helps keep the review process pure and free from bias
- Small Improvements provides an interactive, easy-to-navigate tool for goal setting and reviews
- The employee review platform can be a bit difficult to understand, as it is very different from other tools or review processes
- It's not convenient to remind yourself to log into the platform constantly to review goals, progress on goals, etc.
- Small Improvements should have a way to integrate personal professional goals & areas of improvement with the entire organization, so that others can provide feedback for their peers - or even managers