PERFORMANCE EVALUATION INTERVIEWS: THE EVALUATION DOCUMENT

We are continuing to look at Performance Evaluation Interviews.  Due to the amount of information involved, I am breaking this topic into three parts:  Pre-Evaluation Information, The Evaluation Document and Providing the Interview Today we are going to look at the Performance Evaluation Document itself.  Seeing as how the Interview in many cases will be directly related to the document itself, it is a good idea to know a little bit more about one.  Please feel free to comment about experiences with Performance Evaluations that you have seen at your own workplace down below.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION INTERVIEWS:  THE EVALUATION DOCUMENT

So it has been 6 months and now it is time to review your employee.  What do you do?  How do you document it?  Well, if you did your homework as I referenced in my last post, you would already have several months of accomplishments and data for the employee.  Now you need to do something with it.  What you need is a form of documentation, usually known as a Performance Evaluation (PE).  Now I have an editable sample PE that you can download and review at the bottom of this post.  Most organizations will have one of these customized to fit the needs of their own industry.  For example, Sales Performance figures may be featured on the PE of a salesman, but might be inappropriate for a College Professor.

RATINGS

A PE document will give an employer the ability to rate an individual on their performance, comparing an individual’s performance against expectations, company guidelines, and peers.    Some organizations use a 1-5 graded scale, with 1 being a poor performance and 5 being the best.  The typical rating for most individuals will be a 3.  The numerical rating can be useful for tracking and ordering personnel performance for the purposes of bonuses, raises, and promotions.  However, you will want to be careful about not “gaming the system”.  Managers should not artificially give low scores on PEs to save money on the budget.  This will eventually be noticed by your employees, leading to lowered morale and increased turnover.

SECTIONS

PEs are typically broken down into a few common sections with a few additional sections added based on your unique industry or organization.  Some of the common sections include:

     > Job Knowledge/Experience - These kinds of sections will evaluate an individual employee based on their technical knowledge of policies and procedures.

     > Vision/Leadership/Management - These kinds of sections will evaluate the qualities of an individual in leading a team or project in accordance with an organization’s goals.

     > Communications/Relationship-building/Teamwork - These kinds of sections look at an individual’s ability to promote ideas, communicate information, and work with others.

     > Productivity/Accuracy/Quality - This kinds of sections may measure the quantity of work done and assess how well that work was done.

LONG TERM RECORD

Your PEs should be retained on file for at least four years after termination.  It is suggested that you ensure storage of these records is in a secure location with only managers with a “need to know” having access.

And remember all of you Human Resources professionals:  Be Human... Be a Resource...  Be a Resource for Humans.

Link to Sample PE:  Sample Performance Evaluation

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Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this post are by the author Trevor Stasik, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer or any other organization. Please note, this information is based on my understanding and is only to be used for informational and educational purposes.  Do not take what I am writing as advice.  Seek your own legal counsel and/or see a tax accountant before making business or personal decisions.  The author of this post makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.