Giving Effective Employee Evaluations
Evaluating your employees can be a great method for helping managers assess employee performance and for giving feedback on how well an employee executes their job duties. Both parties can benefit immensely from evaluations.
Performance evaluations are imperative to company success. They provide room for both parties to gain feedback on what they are doing well, what they need to work on, what they want, and what both parties goals are, yet many managers dread the process or do not know how to conduct them effectively.
Follow these simple steps and you’ll be on your way to conducting excellent employee evaluations!
Define Expectations
Define what is expected of the employee, and make sure that their goals are both measurable and observable. This way, when it comes time to give an evaluation, you will have very specific and tangible things to look at and bring to the table.
Create Goals
Discuss and set up goals with each employee, and then make sure to get each employee to sign off on the goals, showing that they are on board and agree with the plan in place. This way you will protect yourself from any backlash when it comes time to review your employees, and have a great way to hold employees accountable to the goals they set for themselves.
Provide Written Evaluations
Every 6 months or so, discuss employee performance. For struggling employees, consider a once a month evaluation. Ensure that written performance reviews reflect the entire evaluation period. By putting the evaluation in writing, you have something to refer back to when the next evaluation comes up.
Maintain a Performance Record
Similarly to my reasoning above, take written notes throughout the year, so you always have a paper trail to refer to when discussing employee performance. Things like big wins your employees encounter, any losses, etc… By keeping track of things like this, you will set yourself up for an incredibly successful employee review!
Ensure Integrity Of Evaluation
Written comments need to be factual, detailed and constructive. This makes employees feel both valued and like they are being paid attention to. Use respectful language and mannerisms during performance reviews. Listen actively and ask employee to clarify responses when necessary. It is also important that performance criteria is not changed after the review. Standards need to be consistent across employees.
By incorporating these simple steps into your evaluations, you will come away feeling like you have done an effective job at evaluating your employees! Good luck!
