How to Get From Here to There

Starting a journey without first choosing a destination and charting a course is futile. The same goes for employee performance appraisals. What’s the point in trying to assess performance if you, as a manager, haven’t set reasonable goals or communicated to employees what needs to be done to reach those goals?

Training and feedback should be ongoing. Training matched with useful performance appraisals can help you:

• set goals and meet them
• match employee performance to company goals
• track employee progress
• make more accurate performance assessments

Small business owners, with fewer employees and resources, might bristle at investing precious time and money in developing performance appraisal and training systems. But according to Brent Colescott, manager of performance support systems at Insperity, a Houston-based professional employer organization (PEO), the return in productivity and improved performance is well worth the investment.

In reports from the Families and Work Institute, which highlight factors in increasing the productivity, performance and retention of entry-level, hourly employees, education and training programs ranked very high in creating effective workplaces.  Effective workplaces, which empower and support all employees, were also shown to have a greater impact on entry-level, hourly and low-wage employees than more advanced, higher paid employees.

In working towards developing the optimal performance appraisal and training systems, Colescott suggests incorporating online technology into a company’s educational and training tool kit. He finds a combination of synchronous and asynchronous applications most helpful. As part of Insperity’s performance support systems, Colescott incorporates applications such as Webex and SkillsSoft into his training programs. “Webex is especially helpful in training employees in multiple locations,” says Colescott.

For companies with smaller budgets to allocate toward the performance assessment of employees, desktop solutions could be a better fit. Performance Now, an Insperity brand human resources (HR) management software, can help any manager craft effective performance reviews. This software even comes with performance reminders and a list of reliable tips from HR professionals for creating a performance improvement plan you can use year-round.