Great Performances
Four Strategies For Successful Employee Reviews
Phillip M. Perry
You want the most bang for your buck when you invest money in your business. If
you buy a computer or truck, for example, you select a top-quality machine and
maintain it for peak performance.
Don’t you want the same results with
your employees? After you hire quality people, you want to make sure they keep
working in ways that boost your bottom line.
People, though, are not
machines. You can’t oil them or replace their defective parts or upgrade their
memories. So just how can you keep them in great shape?
The answer lies
in periodic evaluations. Performance reviews are maintenance programs that keep
your employees running in top condition.
“Performance appraisals are
even more important for the owner-operator of a small business than for a big
corporation,” says Dick Grote, a Dallas-based performance management consultant.
If you have only two employees dealing with the public, he notes, an
underperforming worker will negatively affect 50 percent of your interaction
with customers. “That’s a disaster,” says Grote.
At the small
organization, the owner can watch employee performance closely, adds Grote.
“When people know what’s expected and they know how they are doing, they can do
exactly what the owner wants, and that is powerful.”
1. Review
Performance Regularly
Regular supervisory feedback keeps employees on
track and corrects habits that have a negative effect on your business. Most
important, it reinforces productive behaviors.
“Good supervisors let
employees know what they are doing well. It’s very important to maintain an
ongoing ‘back and forth’ throughout the year between supervisor and employee,”
advises Grote.
Effective feedback also enhances the team nature of the
workplace.
“The more you couch your feedback in terms of ‘how we are
doing’ the more effective your feedback will be,” says Grote.
The
identification of an individual employee’s goals with those of the organization
is an area where small businesses, with their close-knit human network, have a
leg up on the big corporate competition.
Of course, regular and specific
workplace feedback is not a panacea. There’s real value in having structured
annual discussions where supervisors and employees discuss how things are going
and what steps need to be taken in the year ahead.
Indeed, sometimes the
formal review is the only environment where sub-par performance can be addressed
in a way that makes a difference.
“Human beings have an infinite
capacity for self-delusion,” notes Grote. “With some people it won’t matter how
many times you have corrected them during the year. They will still say they did
not understand.”
In such cases, the formal review is the right setting
for establishing precise performance parameters that the employee is expected to
achieve over the coming year.
Even so, annual reviews will go much
smoother when employees have had the benefit of regular feedback. Keep unhappy
surprises to a minimum by allowing employees to correct any sub-par performance
areas throughout the year.
2. Be Specific
Profitable
businesses rate employees against performance parameters which are measurable.
“If performance can be measured, performance can be improved,” advises
Jerry Nelson, president of HRN Management Group in Salt Lake City. “Employee
evaluations with specific parameters can be tremendously effective in improving
workplace performance.”
Effective, measurable parameters identify the
critical competencies specific to each position.
“You value a secretary
for reasons different from those of your debt collector or your office manager,”
points out Nelson. “So for each position, ask ‘what behavior is most important
to the job?’”
Micro-businesses face a special challenge because people
tend to wear many hats.
“When employees are doing a variety of tasks,
they need to be reminded to focus on the important aspects of their jobs,” says
Nelson. “People tend to think just because they are working hard they are doing
well. That’s not always the case. They need to concentrate most on the things
that keep the company moving forward.”
But how can you assess employee
performance against critical competencies in a way that convinces the employee
of the need for improvement? Give specific examples of workplace behavior.
“A performance appraisal is a formal record of a supervisor’s opinion
about the quality of an employee’s work,” points out Grote. “The opinion,
though, has to be objective and based on facts. Examples will make the
assessment objective.”
The magic phrase, adds Grote, is “For example . .
.”
Your assessment that Joe needs to improve customer communication
skills will be effective if you can go on to say something like this: “I am
concerned about how you spoke with Mrs. Johnson when you handled the
installation at her site . . .”
Effective performance appraisals improve
profitability by inspiring employees to improve in their essential competencies.
“If you don’t measure performance and report back, it is easy for things
to slide,” says Nelson. “Then mediocrity takes over.”
3. Set Goals
For Improvement
So one of your employees is doing badly. But why?
Maybe the cause is not so easy to determine. Could she simply be in the
wrong role? Are outside activities impinging on her work?
Try asking the
employee for some help in words such as these: “What would you say is one of the
key reasons for your poor performance?” Since she may instinctively shift blame
away from herself, you’ll need to get a discussion going. Try asking: “What can
we do to improve the work environment to help you perform?”
These
conversations can be difficult because they often touch on issues of personality
and style. It’s important, therefore, to encourage the employee to open up and
contribute.
“Make the review a two-way conversation,” suggests Don
Schackne, president of Personnel Management and Administration Associates in
Delaware, Ohio.
“Maybe you say ‘Here is how I see your performance,’ and
then the employee can come back and say ‘here is what I think.’ Make each of
your statements a discussion point rather than a threat.”
A good
program, says Schackne, lets the employee leave thinking “my boss didn’t tear me
apart or belittle me or make me feel like less than a whole person.”
Once causes for poor performance are identified, set goals for
improvement with a clear time frame for accomplishment. Calendar dates can be
important milestones to help avoid procrastination.
You need to follow a
schedule, too. One of the traditional failings of evaluations is lack of
follow-through. Mark your own calendar at checkpoints that have been coordinated
with the employee. Meet on these dates to discuss progress.
4. Focus
On Employee Strengths
No one looks forward to being judged. And the
performance review is no exception. Even if we think we’ve been doing good work,
we’re still nervous about what our supervisor might say.
“The feelings
we have about performance reviews are very similar to those we had back in grade
school,” notes Grote, the Dallas-based performance management consultant. “Even
if we always got good grades, we were still nervous about our report cards.”
Wouldn’t it be great – and lead to more productive reviews – if the
negative feelings about evaluations could somehow be diminished?
“I
don’t know if you can ever get people to look forward to reviews,” says Grote.
“But here’s something that can help: Keep in mind that the payoff in performance
appraisals comes not from focusing on weaknesses, but from building on
strengths.”
You can get some help from the employee in developing a
clear picture of strengths. Before the review, Grote suggests saying something
like this to your employee: “Dick, pretty soon I will be doing performance
reviews. Before I start thinking about yours, over the next couple of days
please jot down a list of things you have done in the past year that you really
feel good about. What are you really proud of?”
This list of
achievements — you might call it a “good stuff list” — will promote a positive
mindset on the part of the employee as you go into your meeting.
“There’s nothing more embarrassing for a manager than to hand a
performance review to an employee, only to be reminded of a forgotten critical
project the person had finished over the past year,” says Grote. “You can say
you ‘forgot.’ But the employee will never forget.”
Indeed, a positive
attitude on the part of both employee and supervisor will go a long way toward
creating a morale-building event that will be a springboard to the year ahead.