How To Create An Evaluation

Ways to Evaluate Employees

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How do you evaluate employees when you have workers in multiple locations? Even if you work in the same place as your staff, you can't always judge one worker's output against another, but when it comes to appraisal time, comparing your staff is exactly what you have to do. Thankfully there are appraisal methods that will help you through this process. If you use one of the methods recommended here, you will remain objective during a process that many managers don't like.

Recognition and Reward

We all want to be recognized when we do good work. Evaluating the performance of your whole team means that those that shine brightest can be rewarded for it. An employee's compensation might be structured around this so you'll need accurate ways of quantifying a worker's performance. There are some simple and universal evaluation methods, the most obvious of which are objectives.

Objectives and Deadlines

Setting objectives with deadlines works from the employee's point of view because the company is being clear about what it expects to see from an individual in a certain period of time. It also works well from management's perspective because you'll have the opportunity to judge the worker's progress towards a goal. For this reason, it's best to set up regular meetings. The meeting should be used to guide the worker towards the goal. Some employees will need pushing along, others will need support and guidance while the third group who probably don't need the meetings at all, should be told they're on the right track.

Self-Evaluation

During your scheduled meeting, you should ask the employee to evaluate their own performance. Are they naturally goal orientated? Are they interested in progression? Do they want to improve their career prospects? These are the questions you'll be able to answer once you've got their feedback. You could be direct and ask those things but you'll know from the way the employee approaches the evaluation process if they're looking to impress or looking to get the meetings over as soon as possible.

Reporting the Findings

No matter how you chose to report the findings, make sure you use the same format for all employees so you can evaluate them fairly and accurately. If you've chosen to involve the employees in the objectives phase of the process, it's doubly important to have a dedicated report for this process which they can complete. Some employers like to give their team members the chance to rate themselves on subjective factors like dependability, communication skills, quality of work and ability to work within a team, and then see how well aligned the manager is with the worker's evaluation during a formal meeting. This is a good format because the worker and employer can talk things through and see if they can reach a consensus. This format can lead to confrontation though if the two parties are very far apart in their evaluation so you'll have to decide if this will work for you and your team.

360 Employee Evaluations

If you'd like to try something a little more radical than the approaches we've suggested so far, you might end up using the 360 employee evaluation process. This type of evaluation involves the manager, several peers, the worker and any staff who report to the worker. Rather than focusing on goals, this type of review looks at the worker's skill set and the contribution he or she makes to the business as a whole. This process should give a more balanced view of the employee's approach to work because it seeks to show how workers interact with those above their level, on their level, and below it.

Word it Carefully

No matter how the review is set out, it needs to be carried out professionally. Setting up a formal meeting and having all the information on hand are simple things the manager can do to make sure the meeting is undertaken in a professional manner, but it's really important to get the wording right when you deal with a sensitive subject like appraising a worker. Talk about 'time management' rather than 'lateness'. Talk about 'productivity' rather than 'laziness'. Use phrases like 'interpersonal skills' and 'delegation' to help take the emotion out of a situation which can turn ugly if your employees aren't hearing what they want to hear. If you approach the meeting as if it were an interview, you'll have the right mindset, you'll create the right atmosphere and you'll get more out of it.