As its first European user gathering kicks off in Paris, SuccessFactors has expanded its Performance and Talent Management Suite offering with the addition of Stack Ranker, a new offering which enables managers to rate and assess talent across company-defined competencies and related criteria.

The tool can be used by managers to creat a visual and intuitive stack ranking of employees to accelerate a course of action. It’s event-driven and can be used to answer simple questions like: who is the strongest in a given competency area, who is the top performer overall, and who are low performers? Ranking team members allows managers to address, in real-time, changes to their business by providing detailed insight into the strength of a business, division or team’s talent.

According to SuccessFactors, Stack Ranker enables companies to visually rank talent and instantly identify top-ranked players so that managers can optimise teams by motivating and cultivating their best people. It goes beyond basic performance reviews to capture new characteristics for a more holistic assessment, incorporating factors like criticality of the role into ranking or other criteria to serve as tie-breakers. It also allows managers to assess an entire team across critical competencies and criteria in real time – all in one place.

“Stack Ranker more tightly integrates performance management into everyday business decisions, helping managers and leaders to make informed, empowered choices about their workforce,” said SuccessFactors CEO Lars Dalgaard. “Now, more than ever, in these tough economic times, companies need immediate access to team performance, to reward and recognize top performers or to ramp up or down as necessary. Stack Ranker easily helps managers make that happen.”

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