A business has a few general objectives: to make a profit, provide excellent customer service and to grow and succeed.
Who makes this happen? Your employees make it happen. How they make it happen has a lot to do with setting, communicating and evaluating performance expectations.
An employee performance evaluation is a powerful tool.
This process provides employers with a way to set and communicate expectations so employees can help reach stated business objectives and goals. A positive and clear understanding between employer and employees about job performance expectations is essential for any business to succeed.
Like most tools (its success depends on how you use it), there is a range of effectiveness in using an employee performance evaluation. In order to reach that high-end range, you want to maximize its effectiveness. Most employee evaluations are reviewed on an annual basis. HR professionals recommend that employers also provide constructive feedback throughout the year by coaching, counseling and mentoring.
Imagine a 'T' figure.
In the center of the 'T' is the performance evaluation. At the top of the 'T' is where the supervisor and the employee strive for that continuous feedback. The right side is where the business focuses on improving processes. When the manager and the employee stay in constant communication, then the employees remain close to the business; thereby allowing them to quickly react to systems that need attention or fixing.
At the bottom of this 'T' is merit-pay (or pay for performance). This area also includes personnel actions such as promotions, probation or re-evaluation of how they best fit your business model. For instance, their skill set may better serve you in another area of the company. It could also be determined that they might be better suited to another company entirely. The final piece is on the opposite side of the 'T', the left-hand side. Here we have staff or succession planning; and at the heart of all this is the performance evaluation.
What I have described are actually the components of a talent-management system; and the performance evaluation, when used effectively, is the key component or tool.
To help understand how this 'T' illustration translates into a meaningful business context, I’ll share a recent professional experience.
I have been working with an organization in a highly competitive field to help them improve their customer service ratings. To begin with, we looked at how employees view their jobs through a climate survey. (To learn more about climate surveys read this HRTools Insight by Dr. Chris Wright.)
Basically, we reviewed and analyzed employees’ input: They wanted to know such things as how:
This feedback screamed out deficiencies: "Look at my performance-management system—my talent management system." So, I got buy-in from management to address the climate survey results, and we reviewed their performance evaluation system.
Then we chose two clinics for the managers to attend. By participating in these clinics, they will develop the expertise necessary for enhancing their performance evaluation system. For example, they need to improve their employees’ customer-service response time. We developed a set of expectations and set specific goals and communicated this information to the employees. Prior to this, employees received no feedback during the year, and they were simply put on probation if they underperformed.
In the next phase, we will seek more input from the customer service reps, which also helps us gain their trust and buy-in. They will participate in developmental clinics, and we will continue coaching and monitoring their progress.
In closing, for a business to successfully compete in this highly competitive global economy, leaders must do all they can to maintain that competitive edge. Effectively using employee performance evaluations will help you accomplish your goals and will help you plan for future successes.
My future insights will provide steps and more detailed information that any business can use for managing talent. That one-time-only employee orientation is just the first step of developing employees’ skills to meet the needs of your organization.