Your employees are one of the most valuable assets of your company; hence it is very important that you make sure that all employees are living up to the goals and objectives of the company. So, how do you make sure that your employees are performing to the best of their abilities? That’s where the importance of performance reviews comes in. All companies are doing performance reviews every year to check their employees’ performance over the course of time.
Read on to know the tips on how to conduct an effective performance review and get the most out of this process.
Simplification of the process by using performance logs
To make the most accurate and objective performance review, it is important that managers should have a performance log created for each employee. This record should start as early as when the employee was hired and should be kept updated. Creating a performance log is helpful since this would serve as a source of data or basis of your evaluation. With the number of employees that you are managing, you won’t be able to remember the success and failures of each one of them if you are just relying on your memory.
A good performance log should include:
- Strength and weakness of the employees – List down the good and bad behaviors of the employees. Write down the accomplishments that they have done and look for any areas of improvement
- Make sure that each entry is dated to ensure the accuracy of the report – For the log to be accurate and reliable, do not forget to put a date for each entry.
- How the employee responded to problems and issues raised – Based on your observation, explain how the employee handled and solved the issues.
- Instances of tardiness and any disciplinary actions taken – Disciplinary actions should be taken down to measure the severity of the offense.
- Contribution to the project
- Employee’s work ethics and the quality of work that they deliver
Avoid including personal opinions, rumors or speculations and information of the employee’s personal life that is not significant to the performance review.
Knowing the employee’s competencies and objectives
Surely, you do not want to keep an employee that does not know how to do his job. Performance review is a great medium to ensure that all of your employees are competent and work towards the vision of the company. Managers should use methods on how to assess their employees’ competencies
- Have the employees assess their competencies by answering the self-evaluation as honestly and objective as they can. Have them rank their competencies on a scale of 1 to 10.
- Have the supervisors provide feedback of the employee’s work behavior and performance.
- Observe how employees perform their daily tasks and evaluate if they possess the right skills needed.
- Review and examine the employee’s applications, records, training and development summaries.
Assessment of an employee’s achievement
Employees are expected to deliver the job properly but they would be more motivated if their works are acknowledged. It is important that every single achievement, no matter how small it is, should be noted. For every successful accomplishment that was done, make sure that this is noted on the log with a date on it so that managers can refer to this list during the performance review.
Helping employees reach their peak performance
As managers or supervisors, it is your role to make sure that you develop your employees to be the best that they can be. As your workforce is the blood of your company, each employee should be motivated and well-driven to excel in each of their jobs. To maximize the productivity of your employees, use these practices to be able to get an excellent performance.
- Involve your employees in goal-settings – Employees work better if they feel valued. Instead of implementing policies, try to get the opinions of your employees first. They perform better if their opinion is counted.
- Have realistic goals – Make sure that the goals that you set are not high enough to make them fail or low enough to make them slack off. Goals should be well-driven, doable and desirable.
- Hit their buttons – Each employee has reasons why they work. Know your employees and their motivations. Use this motivation as a push button to make them excel and reach their highest peak. If employees are well-motivated, injuries and troubles in the workplace will be greatly minimized so there is no need for you to have experienced workers comp attorney.
- Avoid micromanaging – As tempting as it may be, avoid watching your employee’s every move. They will want to excel more if they feel your trust. Let them learn things on their own rather than dictating every single move that they should make.
Incorporate employee self-review
Performance review process should not only be a one-sided evaluation where the manager is the only party. The employee should be involved in this process and incorporating employee self-review can contribute to the effectiveness of this process. Engaging the employees in self-assessment provides them an active role to play. Through self-review, employees are given a voice instead of just merely being the recipient. Other pros of self-review are:
- Can serve as a cheat sheet for the managers when doing the overall performance review form.
- Gives ownership to the employee to document the works that they contributed and highlight their achievements
Be specific and clear on your performance standards
Before you conduct your yearly performance review, you should ponder first on the work ethics that you want your employees to have. The sole purpose of the performance review is to make sure that each employee is aligned with the company’s standards, so it is really important that you set a clear and concise explanation as to what you want to achieve.
Conducting a performance review should be fully maximized to make sure that both the management and the workforce get the most out of this evaluation process.
