Laura Greene continues the debate around feedback.
As a high-ranking company employee, you might be tasked with evaluating employee performance. While this may sound standard, and it is, do you know why employee evaluations are important?
Companies should allow for frequent employee performance evaluations to ensure that company morale is high and that their employees are successfully completing their jobs, while also ensuring that their employees are given the space to grow and improve to benefit themselves and the company.
A damaging trend lately is the infrequency of effective employee performance evaluations. These evaluations are crucial to the success of the company, as well as to the individual success of employees, because consistent constructive feedback allows employees to see an unbiased opinion of their performance and then decide how to improve.
When employee performance evaluations aren’t performed often or well, this can result in damages to the company due to poor employee background check.
So now that you understand the importance of employee performance evaluations, what happens if you’re unsure of how to perform them? This can be quite a nerve-wracking assignment, especially if you have yet to perform such a task.
If the only time you provide your employees with feedback is during an annual or semi-annual performance evaluation, you could be wasting precious time that your employees could use to improve.
You want to effectively evaluate your employees’ performance without being so harsh that you crush office morale or so easy-going that employees are unable to see their flaws or the areas they should work on. Don’t worry – if you prepare correctly, conducting employee performance evaluations can be a breeze. Here are seven tips on how to do so effectively:
Give constructive feedback throughout the year
Believe it or not, much of the preparation for conducting employee performance evaluations is done throughout the year. If the only time you provide your employees with feedback is during an annual or semi-annual performance evaluation, you could be wasting precious time that your employees could use to improve.
By providing constructive feedback throughout the year, you can ensure that your employees are doing well, that your company is doing well and that office morale is doing well.
Be transparent about performance expectations and evaluation guidelines
Throughout the year and prior to the performance evaluation, make sure that you are straightforward about what it is you expect from your employees. They should always know to what level they are expected to perform, but prior to the evaluation, it should also be clear exactly what the evaluation guidelines are to be.
Your employees should know how they are performing before you meet with them and the meeting should serve as a safe space for an open discussion about what they are doing well and what they should improve on. If you keep these expectations and guidelines to yourself, you aren’t only hurting your employees, but you’re hurting your company also.
Address poor performance immediately and respectfully
If an employee is exhibiting poor performance throughout the year, don’t wait until evaluation time to tell them that they need to improve. Rather, take them aside during the year and speak with them about what they are struggling with – this can create a healthy relationship between the two of you where they will feel comfortable being open with you about their performance.
Remember that you aren’t just an evaluator – you’re a leader, too. If you expect employees to improve, but don’t help them do so, they will feel lost and confused.
However, be sure to address poor performance respectfully- remember that you want to help your employees improve, not berate them.
Don’t only give negative feedback
While we all have those employees that need to improve their performance, if we only focus on the negative aspects of their performance, they will feel unappreciated, hurt and will get low morale, which could affect even more of the company. When addressing negative feedback, be sure to also mention what the employee does well.
Set goals with your employees
Employee performance evaluation meetings should be used to set new goals. Have an open discussion with employees about their performance where you discuss both the negative and positive aspects and then decide how to move forward. The discussion is only helpful if something productive comes from it.
Employees should be able to leave the meeting with a set of goals that they personally want to accomplish for the benefit of the company. Setting goals can inspire employees to do better rather than leave them feeling ashamed for poor performance.
Offer solutions and assistance
If you notice in employee performance evaluations that employees are struggling, offer your assistance or solutions, if you have any. Remember that you aren’t just an evaluator – you’re a leader, too. If you expect employees to improve, but don’t help them do so, they will feel lost and confused.
Focus solely on performance
A final point to remember when conducting employee performance evaluations is to ensure that they evaluation is just about their performance. As human beings, we all have people that we don’t like. Don’t make performance evaluations personal. Remember that you are evaluation their work performance, not their attitude or personality. Keep it professional.
Hopefully these seven tips make you feel more confident about the employment performance evaluation process. If you use these tips, evaluations will be a breeze!
About the author
Laura Greene is one of the content managers for TrustedEmployees.
