Some employers ask me, “How do I go about starting an effective employee evaluation process?” I am an advocate of this performance tool because, as I explained in my first HRTools Insight, this process helps employers successfully manage their talent.
Now that you understand how talent management propels your employees to help you boost profits, improve customer service ratings and to grow and succeed, I will take you through the steps of the employee evaluation process.
Start with Determining Your Business Needs
In order to maximize these benefits, you will want to begin with the following five steps for managing an effective employee evaluation process:
- Determine specific business needs
- Inspire management support
- Earn employee buy-in
- Tie performance with pay
- Establish consistent, two-way communication between supervisor and employee
To help illustrate, I’ll share a recent experience with a client. This client wants to:
- First, continue improving their customer satisfaction ratings, and grow their own client base.
- Second, evaluate how their agents meet their client’s needs with minimal phone time. So they need an effective employee evaluation process designed to help them meet these two business needs.
To effectively launch this process, you will need to enlist management support and their cooperation. Supervising managers further need to inspire their employees’ buy in and commitment to the process or it is not going to work. Next, a “pay for performance” script is prepared that details how specific employee-related objectives or behaviors directly connect potential pay increases to meeting or exceeding expectations. Alternatively, as a consequence, if agreed-upon expectations are not met, a probationary period may follow.
Finally, it is critically important that throughout the entire process period, managers follow through and maintain ongoing two-way communication with their employees. If employees are missing the mark or if they have ideas for improvement, ongoing communication will ensure timely and successful remedies. This step also includes the employees completing a self-evaluation, normally at the end of the year. Then, the manager and the employee come to a mutual decision whereby they jointly evaluate the employee’s progress and assess ratings, which are finalized as a joint agreement. In cases where there is disagreement, the supervisor has the final decision.
Train Managers for the Process
In order for managers to lead this process with their employees, they must be trained. Training will help them understand the ratings and the performance process. They will also learn how to plan for consistency and prepare for ongoing communication, which is vitally important to the success of the process.
It’s also important that the manager and the employee understand the established objectives and expectations so there is no confusion. Meeting expectations may mean one thing to you and another to me. So everyone needs to be “on the same page.” Invest in training your managers and you will be rewarded with an effective employee evaluation process.
Effective Employee Evaluation Process: Key Areas Summarized
To summarize the key components of an effective employee evaluation process, visualize a circle and three intersecting spheres.
At the top of the circle is the planning sphere. This area covers setting job expectations, goals and objectives.
- The next sphere represents feedback objectives, using developmental techniques such as coaching and counseling. These techniques provide managers with ways to help employees grow and develop.
- The third sphere represents the final review that takes place between the manager and the employee. This is the final phase of the process.
There you have it and, with this circle, you can start over every year with the first sphere of the circle — the planning phase. If managed properly, this process works because it serves to hold employees accountable and sets job ownership in motion. For the health and well-being of your organization and your employees, take the time to follow all three key components. You will be rewarded with a highly competitive organization.