The Art of Performance Evaluations

Most managers and employees view performance evaluations as necessary, but difficult to do. Managers do not look forward to the process and most employees see it as a time when managers make unfair demands or criticisms. Employees also see an evaluation as a one-sided (biased) view of their performance.

Reflecting on the performance evaluations that many employees have experienced, you can see there is good reason for the apprehension they feel about the process. This apprehension is the primary reason why evaluations are not done on time – if at all. When an employee’s performance deteriorates to a level that makes him or her expendable, it is often too late for a performance evaluation. Yet if an evaluation is conducted, there is a good chance the employee can be saved. A retained employee increases company morale, reduces costs, and boosts productivity and profits.

Like many tasks in business, there is need for processes. Accounting needs processes, customer service cannot operate without them, inventory management needs them, and so it is with performance evaluations as well.

Processes minimize the influence of personal bias so that the focus can be on the task and its outcome. One might ask what measurable results a manager and an employee can expect from a performance evaluation session. Here is a partial list of objectives that managers and employees experience.

Expectations for Performance Evaluation

To accomplish:

Bias-free appraisal of the employee's job performance

To review:

The employee’s performance of specific job tasks
The employee’s relations with internal and external customers
The most effective way for the employee to communicate with his/her manager
The employee’s communication style, and how it affects those he/she works with
Internal and external customers' comments about the employee
The best way for the manager to communicate with the employee
The employee’s perception of his/her work environment

To establish:

Clear objectives to enhance the employee's performance
A clearly stated and agreed-on dateline to meet enhancement objectives
Other expectations specific to the position and company culture

Evaluations conducted after an employee has performed badly for a long time (a year or more) will produce a highly biased evaluation. Companies can use benchmarks sooner to identify the personal talents and technical skills needed for a position. When these benchmarks are in place, they create a set of key accountabilities which the employee needs to adhere to, and which the manager must use to evaluate the employee's performance.

Example of a Job-Related Key Accountability,

and the Method for Measuring It

In this example, the position has a key accountability, or attribute, called personal accountability. There are many other kinds of accountability. This attribute is defined as “a measure of the capacity for the employee to be answerable for personal actions.” The purpose for considering this attribute is to state to the employee that he or she will be responsible for his or her actions of commission and omission.

The position calls on the employee to have the capacity to be answerable for personal actions. The response to the following job-related statements will measure the performance as it's perceived by both the employee and the manager. During the evaluation, the employee and manager need to determine how personally accountable the employee is by evaluating the following four statements, using a five-point scale.

Accepts personal responsibility for the consequences of his or her actions
Avoids placing unnecessary blame on others
Maintains personal commitment to objectives regardless of the success or failure of personal decisions
Applies personal lessons learned from past failures to move forward and achieve future successes

Using a ranking scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 to indicate that the employee does it all the time, and 5 to indicate that he or she never does it), the employee and manager, and/or others, create the rank score based on their observations in the work environment.

Let's review one of these four statements: "Avoids placing unnecessary blame on others." The employee is not to make a habit of blaming others. If the employee rates his/her performance with a 1 or 2 (does not blame others) and the manager has a rating of 4 or 5 (he/she does blame others too much) then there is a need to clarify the realities for the position.

Imagine that the employee believes he/she is not blaming others, but the manager claims that the employee is. For the review to yield positive expectations, each person must be accountable for their scores by producing clear examples of work situations. This process of producing examples greatly reduces biases, and forces all participants to focus on job-related activity.

If you agree that “perception is reality,” then each ranking is a single participant's own version of reality. However, when job-related examples rather than feelings are used to explain the difference in the scores, everyone has the opportunity to have an “Ah-ha” moment. This opportunity can lead to better information about expectations, a better way to communicate this information, and the elimination of bias from the resulting view of what should be done. It is very rare for employees not to want to be the best they can be.

The following are among the greatest benefits of any performance evaluation:

To provide employees with clear, unbiased directions and expectations for success in the position
To provide managers with information about the employee’s perception of incorrect expectations, as well as ways to correct them
To demonstrate the need for better listening and communication skills between all parties going forward

It is vital for building a company’s ongoing success to identify each position's key accountabilities, and then hold the employee accountable. Underperforming employees have impeded the progress of companies in all industries for a long time – poor performance which has contributed in no small measure to the current economic condition of our country.

When employees receive consistently accurate information about what is expected of them, they perform better, with less stress for themselves and those they work with, and for a longer time.

Performance evaluations work: they build teams who build successful companies.

Testimonials: "We will continue using this tool as an addendum to our standard evaluation form and procedure here at Sartomer."

Call me today at 610-458-3511 so I can demonstrate how can have a successful performance evaluation process for any position in your company.

Click here to read the article "The Cost of Keeping Non-Performers."

Source: John Mathis, Owner/President, Keyline Company, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Copyright protected.