What’s UP (Weekly, Hot, Applicable Topic Summary - Unbiased Perspective)

Employee Performance Reviews

As the end of the year rapidly approaches, managers focus on the employee performance evaluation process. For both managers and employees, performance evaluations have unfortunately precipitated undue stress and uncertainty. This week’s blog addresses performance evaluations as a beneficial mechanism for employee communication, motivation, and development.

Communication

Open and honest communication between employee and manager is an essential component of organizational effectiveness and productivity. One of the basic leadership guidelines is to clearly articulate and communicate the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives to all employees. When conveying the organization’s direction, this communication can be done as a town-hall meeting, a formal/informal group discussion, or on an individual basis. But once the communication is done, feedback on one’s performance in meeting expectations is typically one-on-one.

To be effective, communication must also be done consistently. An end of year performance review should not be the one and only time an employee receives feedback on their performance. While there are no set guidelines on how often feedback is given, some organizations and managers have experienced significant success in conducting weekly or monthly performance discussions with employees. Further, there are highly motivated employees who are willing to take the initiative and ask their manager to provide input on their (the employee’s) performance. Conducting such informal reviews and providing employee feedback minimizes any potential “surprises” in the end of year performance review.

Employee Performance Reviews and Employee Motivation

Another leadership cornerstone of organizational effectiveness and productivity is to reward employees who consistently perform their duties above expectations while demonstrating the desired behaviors and attitudes of the company. The employee performance evaluation process may help to administer monetary rewards, employee recognition, and promotion opportunities. If an employee’s performance is producing operational and/or financial success for the company, the performance review is an appropriate avenue for discussing individual rewards and recognition for hard work.

On the other hand, the performance review discussion is also the appropriate avenue to discuss any work-related deficiencies and the need for improvement. When discussing employee work deficiencies, managers must provide specific examples of what was done wrong; what the impact of the poor performance was; recommendations on how to improve; and a sincere commitment to help by removing any barriers that impedes the employee from doing a good job. If the negative impact of poor performance and the consequences of continued poor performance are clearly explained, it may serve as an incentive to the employee for immediate improvement. If the negative impact of poor performance is not communicated, the result may be continued poor work performance, and poor operational/financial results.

Employee Performance Reviews and Employee Development

The third and final benefit of the employee performance review process is to identify employee development opportunities. Employees who are passionate about doing a good job want input on how they are doing and how they can continuously improve. Highly motivated and high potential employees also have individual development plans. These development plans describe their strengths, weaknesses, and individual goals and aspirations.

An important manager role is to understand their employees’ individual goals and ensure employees’ individual goals align with the organization’s goals. Communicating and aligning organization and employees goals should be done at the beginning of the year between manager and employee. Expectations and desired results (for both sides) should be discussed and accepted at that time. If there is agreement, acceptance, and alignment of the performance expectations at the beginning of the year, the performance evaluation discussion will be easier with minimal degrees of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. The next blog entry will discuss the goal setting and individual development plan in more detail.

More information on employee performance reviews can be found in Corporate Leadership Selection: Impact on American Business, Employees, and Society (Authorhouse Publishing).

Feedback to the bi-monthly blog entry is always welcome.