Achieving Goals_ Define and Surpass Your High Performance Goals - Kathleen Schienle [24]
If you’ve routinely provided casual feedback to your employees—for instance, noticing that a worker is preparing a report incorrectly and then demonstrating the right way to do it—it’s unlikely that there will be any surprises during the formal evaluation. Knowing there won’t be any unexpected issues raised during the review will keep your employees from being apprehensive or overly defensive—and should avoid most confrontations.
Instead, you and your employee can think of the formal review simply as a more structured version—scheduled and documented—of the day-to-day interactions and communications you already engage in. In this sense, the formal review can be experienced as just another work session, in which the focus is not on daily performance, but on the big picture and on updating or setting new goals.
Steps in a Standard Performance Evaluation
A performance evaluation based on goals—goals achieved and goals to be established—is a straightforward process. Follow these eight steps to schedule, conduct, and complete an effective performance evaluation:
Announce the reviews. Send out a group e-mail or other announcement about the upcoming performance reviews. Briefly emphasize the value of the process to your company, team, and individual employees. Mention that you look forward to your formal discussions and attach or enclose any paperwork you expect employees to fill out.
Schedule the appointment. Make an appointment to meet with each person on your team. If other managers in your division or department will review members of your team as well, schedule that meeting too. Make sure you allow plenty of time for the review. These meetings should be free of interruptions and long enough to give your conversation the importance it deserves.
Compile data. Begin gathering data on each person you will be reviewing, such as your own observations, analysis of the employee’s records, and notes of any discussions you’ve had with the employee or of conversations the employee engaged in with colleagues and supervisors. If you plan on incorporating 360 degree feedback, seek confidential input from the employee’s coworkers, peers, and even customers if appropriate. Make sure to gather the information you will need to respond specifically to the evaluation criteria mandated by your company.
If other managers or supervisors will also review your direct reports, you must fully brief the reviewer on the employees’ goals and objectives for the assessment period, their job descriptions, professional and personal development, and their projects, tasks, and special assignments.
Request self-evaluation. At the same time you begin gathering data, ask employees to complete a self-evaluation, measuring their own performance and their achievements relative to their goals and objectives. Also ask your employees to assess their own strengths and weaknesses, which can open a window into their self-perception and their own personal goals. Some employees are suspicious of formal self-evaluations, believing they could end up rating themselves too generously or too harshly. Let them know beforehand that the review is a two-way street: any gaps between their assessments and yours will be discussed as part of the evaluation process.
Outside the Box
COACHED TO ACHIEVE
Occasionally, when corporate budgets are flush and management believes a particular employee warrants an investment of time and money, the company hires a business coach. The move might be prompted by a specific problem, such as an employee’s failure to meet a critical goal after a stellar performance history, or by complaints about the person’s soft skills, such as anger management. The coach is hired to work with the employee to achieve a specified outcome in a given period of time.
Many employees