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[E320]Evaluation Of Employee Performance

by Sam Miller, Sam

As much as we hate to admit it, employee performance issues are just inevitable in any business. Fortunately, there is something that managers can do to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, however, this method is something that most managers do not commonly practice. This is not because the managers themselves do not have the time to do this method at all. Managers do have the time, and if they are busy dealing with managerial affairs, this is still something managers should take time to do. But this is not the issue at all because most managers actually avoid circumstances that would require them to do this activity. So, what exactly is this activity?

It is the activity of giving the employee or employees concerned feedback that is honest and timely. Let us face it, human as we are, we do not really like to have confrontations. And when you are placed in the scenario to provide feedback that is honest and timely, well, you will have to confront your employee or employees, like it or not. Being the manager in this scene does not necessarily make things easier at all. In fact, being in this position can sometimes make the condition worse. But it comes with the job, and having acquired this job means that you do have the qualities and abilities to carry out this unfortunate part of your job.

If anything, it actually makes it easier to think of the benefits in the broader perspective. If you do not provide feedback to the employees concerned, this would only encourage your employees to continue misbehaving or performing badly. Worse, other employees might come to follow in their footsteps! This would then become a harder scenario to handle! In the long run, the company would be cheated of quality performance the employees originally promised to deliver. And this decrease in quality performance would be manifested on the managerial reports that you yourself would be making. You would be the one left to explain the causes behind this to the big boss. So, the bottom line here is, you would be digging your own hole if you do not provide honest and timely feedback here. The saddest thing about this situation is that you would also be depriving your employees of the chances and opportunities to improve and grow in their respective careers.

So, if you are a bit nervous about handling this, then here are some tips for you. It actually helps to meet the employee in a private setting. Start with the positive comments so that the employee would feel good about himself initially. Slowly go into the negative feedback when the ball starts rolling. Whatever you do, do not yell or threaten the employee. Remember that you are dealing with a person who deserves respect as well.

Never forget to ask the employee for his side of the story. There is that very good chance that the employee is experiencing some personal issues that can contribute to this decrease in employee performance. This is a valid reason, after all. Another great thing about this is that it can easily be remedied by giving the employee sufficient time off the job so that he can deal with these issues accordingly.

Keep these tips in mind when dealing with employee performance, and this difficult scenario can be better dealt with when it arises.

Of the people who buy these books only a small percentage read the book and of those few will deliver any improvement in morale leading to an improvement in employee performance.

Good leaders do not look for a quick fix for employee motivation; instead they embrace a holistic performance management system that prioritizes leader behavior in areas that will deliver meaning full improvements in both morale and employee performance.

There are eight key drivers of employee performance that when incorporated in to your performance management system will result in an improvement in your employee engagement, or morale, by up to 20 percentage points.

The driver with the greatest potential to improve employee morale, or engagement, is for the leader to provide regular informal performance feedback to their people, ensuring the feedback is both fair and accurate.

Define Informal Feedback?

Informal feedback is the feedback that you provide to your employees incidentally throughout the day, often triggered by employee cues, such as overhearing an employee dealing professionally with a difficult customer, when the employee is finished you acknowledge the way they handled the situation.

When giving informal feedback look for opportunities to give positive feedback to your employees who are performing well or have improved recently, developed a new skill, shown commitment to the organizations values. Recognizing teamwork, initiative or risk taking are excellent things to provide feedback on.

Understanding fair?

Being fair is a complex criteria to understand and achieve, not only must the feedback be fair to the person you are giving the feedback to it must also be fair to the rest of your people.

A leader who gives informal feedback to an employee for completing a project without recognizing those who helped might be judged as unfair. Though, the leader will also be judged as unfair if they do not give positive recognition through fear of leaving someone out.

The risk of being unfair through omission can be mitigated if the leader gives lots of informal feedback, the more you give the less people will notice an omission and when they do any negative feelings will have a shorter life.

When giving positive informal feedback you can do this in a public forum however, any negative feedback must be completed in private.

How to be accurate?

Any feedback needs to be accurate; if you are not accurate with your feedback you will risk loosing the respect of your team, to be accurate with informal feedback you will need to be knowledgeable about your employee's current performance.

Management tips:

1. The more personal your feedback the greater the impact.

a. An email saying well done has half the impact of a phone call, email is not as personal as a conversation

b. A phone call to say well done has half the impact of face to face recognition

2. Informal feedback can be in the form of another manager contacting your employee to seek information on how they achieved a specific outcome. (You need to set this up).

3 .A good leader promotes the value of their employees broadly in the organization and talks up their employee capabilities. In addition to promoting the value of your employees, get other leaders in the organization to also provide recognition for big achievements.

See the difference

By embracing the concept of giving regular, fair and accurate, informal feedback to your employees you will be encouraging your employees to believe in the value they add an in doing so you will ensure that your employees feel valued.
When your employees feel valued they will respond with higher level of commitment to the organizations goals, their personal performance will improve and the level of teamwork will increase.

A holistic performance management system will include all eight key drivers of employee performance. The single largest driver of employee performance is the leader providing regular, fair and accurate informal feedback to their employees.

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Both Sam Miller & Ian Pratt are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Sam Miller has sinced written about articles on various topics from Debts Loans, Computers and The Internet and Customer Service. If you are interested in employee performance, check this web-site to learn more about increase productivity.. Sam Miller's top article generates over 550000 views. Bookmark Sam Miller to your Favourites.

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