Achieving Goals_ Define and Surpass Your High Performance Goals - Kathleen Schienle [21]
Still, many human resources executives and consultants believe that well-designed goals, continuing communication, and regular formal evaluations are essential for maximum employee performance and growth.
Unfortunately, many employees and their managers believe structured annual performance reviews are a nuisance at best, if not a complete waste of time. Many managers tend to dislike the annual review process: they believe it takes too long and that the paperwork is complicated, tedious, and redundant. In the end, they feel, nothing concrete comes of it. Often, individual raises are not linked to evaluation results or to company performance. All employees could be rated outstanding in their reviews, yet a company might be 15 percent below its revenue targets.
New managers, in particular, think of the performance reviews as a formidable task. They struggle to balance positive feedback—which helps employees improve their performance and enhance team output—with criticism—which might result in a decrease in morale, energy, and enthusiasm. Moreover, in some companies, performance evaluations are mostly about delivering bad news: about the department or the organization, about raises or the lack thereof, or about an employee’s poor performance. “Get this thing over with,” seems to be the overwhelming mantra on both sides of the desk.
Yet with the right approach, both you and your staff can look forward to the formal review process as an opportunity to advance goals and sharpen performance, recognize accomplishments, take stock, and make a fresh start.
Performance Evaluation Systems
A well-organized performance evaluation process can benefit everyone, from the employee to the manager, and even the customers and shareholders. In general, most companies evaluate all their employees at the same time at least once a year, although some organizations conduct performance reviews on the anniversary of an employee’s hiring date. Twice-yearly or quarterly evaluations are becoming more popular and are especially convenient and effective in fast-paced enterprises, where a more frequent, formal review of objectives is possible—and necessary.
POWER POINTS
KEY PERFORMANCE RATINGS
Typically, the results of an evaluation are recorded on a standardized form. Many companies use the following simple three-point scale to rate an employee’s competency and performance:
Excelled–Goals and expectations were exceeded.
Fulfilled expectations–Goals and expectations were met.
Needs improvement–Goals and expectations were not achieved.
Most companies evaluate their employees using a performance rating system. In this system, the employee is rated on specific and consistent criteria on a scale typically ranging from “excellent” to “poor.” This evaluation system can be easily standardized across the company, but some argue that it does not offer a complete picture of the employee’s performance. Thus, many companies institute a modified rating system, which combines a rating scale with a narrative description of an employee’s performance.
THE BOTTOM LINE
EVALUATIONS CAN BE INDIVIDUAL OR COMPARATIVE
The two main performance evaluation methods rate employees either by a set of standards or by comparison with others. Several options further define each approach:
Individual evaluation methods–These performance evaluations require managers to rate individuals against defined standards, without comparison to other employees. Choice evaluation allows managers to use a set of descriptive statements about an employee. The critical incident method requires managers to keep a log of incidents of effective or ineffective performance for each person on their staff. In essay evaluations, managers write their own assessments of a worker’s strengths and weaknesses. If a company uses a graphic rating scale, the oldest approach to performance evaluations, a manager scores the employee on a specific list of traits, assigning numeric or alphabetic ratings to each one.
Comparative evaluations–In the comparative approach to rating, managers compare