One job that many supervisors and managers dread is the employee
performance appraisal. There are many reasons that this is such a
difficult task, but it does not have to be. Learning how to carry out
performance appraisals can not only reduce the managers stress over the
task, it can actually help to improve the performance of the employees.
How
to carry out performance appraisals is simply a process of setting
clear expectations, training your staff to achieve those expectations,
and then evaluating how well they performed in those areas. When done
properly there is very little guesswork or opinion involved.
Clear specific expectations
The first step in setting up a system for effective performance appraisals is to establish what each employees job entails. This should include measurable goals and benchmarks that you can look back on to evaluate the performance.
The key is to make the expectations as specific as possible. If you have a goal for your sales team to increase sales you need to set a specific amount that they should achieve. It needs to be a specific percentage or dollar goal that they can measure throughout the year.
The advantage of having specific numbers is that it makes evaluation very clear cut. If you expect a 5% increase in sales and you sales person fails to achieve that goal there can be no argument or claims that you are being unfair.
If you have set a goal as merely increasing sales you are left to try to determine how much is enough. If your sales person increased sales by $1 they have achieved the goal you set.
Have employees trained on what is expected
Once you have clear criteria that you are going to be evaluating your staff on, you need to make sure they have the tools and training to achieve those goals. This is especially critical if the person you are evaluating is newer to the position.
If the warehouse supervisor was recently moved to dispatching they will need to be trained on how to effectively route deliveries. It would be unfair to the employee to be judged on how well they performed in the new position if they were never taught how to do that job.
Proper training will also ensure that your employees understand what is expected of them. If you expect increased productivity, but that expectation was never passed on to the employees you will have to do a lot of poor reviews, and you will have a staff full of angry, frustrated employees.
Appraise each employee individually - Do not compare
Another advantage of having clear, measurable criteria is that it helps you to avoid the trap of evaluating one employee against another. If the criteria is a 5% increase in sales, your sales people either achieve that goal or they fail to achieve it.
When you start to evaluate performance based on how another sales person performed you create a hostile atmosphere. Soon your employees will start to look at those they work with as enemies, and it will destroy the cohesiveness of your team. Morale will drop, and so will overall performance.
The objective of performance evaluations is to give your employees a clear picture of how they are doing at meeting your expectations, and lets them know what areas they need to improve. When you perform those evaluations based on clear, measurable criteria you can achieve an increase in the effectiveness of your team.
Learn how to carry out performance appraisals in order to build the competence of your employees.
Clear specific expectations
The first step in setting up a system for effective performance appraisals is to establish what each employees job entails. This should include measurable goals and benchmarks that you can look back on to evaluate the performance.
The key is to make the expectations as specific as possible. If you have a goal for your sales team to increase sales you need to set a specific amount that they should achieve. It needs to be a specific percentage or dollar goal that they can measure throughout the year.
The advantage of having specific numbers is that it makes evaluation very clear cut. If you expect a 5% increase in sales and you sales person fails to achieve that goal there can be no argument or claims that you are being unfair.
If you have set a goal as merely increasing sales you are left to try to determine how much is enough. If your sales person increased sales by $1 they have achieved the goal you set.
Have employees trained on what is expected
Once you have clear criteria that you are going to be evaluating your staff on, you need to make sure they have the tools and training to achieve those goals. This is especially critical if the person you are evaluating is newer to the position.
If the warehouse supervisor was recently moved to dispatching they will need to be trained on how to effectively route deliveries. It would be unfair to the employee to be judged on how well they performed in the new position if they were never taught how to do that job.
Proper training will also ensure that your employees understand what is expected of them. If you expect increased productivity, but that expectation was never passed on to the employees you will have to do a lot of poor reviews, and you will have a staff full of angry, frustrated employees.
Appraise each employee individually - Do not compare
Another advantage of having clear, measurable criteria is that it helps you to avoid the trap of evaluating one employee against another. If the criteria is a 5% increase in sales, your sales people either achieve that goal or they fail to achieve it.
When you start to evaluate performance based on how another sales person performed you create a hostile atmosphere. Soon your employees will start to look at those they work with as enemies, and it will destroy the cohesiveness of your team. Morale will drop, and so will overall performance.
The objective of performance evaluations is to give your employees a clear picture of how they are doing at meeting your expectations, and lets them know what areas they need to improve. When you perform those evaluations based on clear, measurable criteria you can achieve an increase in the effectiveness of your team.
Learn how to carry out performance appraisals in order to build the competence of your employees.
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