How Managers Can Perform Employee Evaluations More Effectively

If you manage a business or work in a Human Resources department, you have likely grown tired of your typical employee evaluation process. Year in and year out, companies use the same methodology, forms and processes to review employee performances. Unfortunately, the individuality of employees can get lost amidst this dreadful bureaucracy. While our systems and policies are static, the people who work with us are dynamic. They change each day. It is important that you develop an up to date employee evaluation process that accurately gauges performance.

Focus on the Why of Employee Actions

The best way for Human Resources departments to improve their employee evaluations is to better their understanding of industrial and organizational psychology (also known as I-O psychology). This examines human behavior in the context of the workplace. It is an attempt to reach the root causes of actions and why employees attempt to present a certain image of themselves to peers and superiors. So give your employees a chance to perform a short self-review where they examine their own thoughts and feelings about their workplace performance and ability to overcome challenges.  A dialogue allows the reviewer an opportunity to understand the employee’s standpoint and perspective.  Don’t let your review slip into a monologue in which the employee merely listens.  He should have the chance to defend his decisions and explain his actions and thoughts.

Review More Frequently Than You Used To

Your employee evaluation system will be completely different if you increase its frequency. Instead of trying to jam in each employee review in the final two months of the year like just about every other employer, space them out in the months without holidays. Choose two months like March and September and review employees for their performance over the course of the last six months. This will reinvigorate your employees and prevent employee evaluation scheduling nightmares around the holidays. If you decide to offer two or more employee evaluations per year, it does not mean that you are locked into providing two opportunities for pay increases. You can still keep an end of the year pay review policy in place if you would like. The key is to establish multiple reviews for consistent and clear feedback.

Review What Went Wrong but Don’t Forget What Went Right

Take care to focus on the positive. Review the employee’s strengths toward the beginning of the evaluation so that he knows that his contribution is valued by the organization. Always prepare ahead of time and contact the employee’s immediate supervisor if you need more information about an employee’s specific performance on a project or during a particular part of the year. Take note of all of his strengths before offering any constructive criticism. Move on to weaknesses, the identification of goals and recommendations for improvement.

It is imperative that you stay positive throughout the recommendations process. This is really the most important component of a review in terms of posterity. So to summarize the evaluation by providing cogent recommendations of specific areas that can be improved. Write down clear goals until the next review and take the time to explain how you think the employee can meet those goals. You should write down key points of emphasis in an organized review for documentation purposes. It also provides employees with complete clarity in regard to where they stand in terms of employment, past performance and expectations for the short term and long term.

An Efficient Review Process Unites and Inspires

The end goal of an employee evaluation should be an improvement in communication along with a series of expectations. The employee, the manager performing the review and the employee’s immediate supervisor should all be on the same page. Consider bringing in the employee’s primary supervisor in on the review for a different perspective. He should be included in the goal setting phase, so it won’t hurt to involve him in the rest of the review unless he manages too many employees to sit in on each’s employee evaluation.

Above all, an efficient employee evaluation should generate important feedback that can be incorporated into future performance. So implement constructive criticism instead of a grading system involving numbers or generic responses like “met expectations / did not meet expectations”. The more creative you are, the more you will be able to customize your organization’s unique employee evaluation program.