Performance evaluation is the part of nearly every organization. It serves not only as a system of evaluation but an effective communication tool as well. The mindset behind conducting an   employee performance evaluation   is the success of the key talent that overall helps an organization flourish. The process includes

• Setting up goals
• Measuring performance
• Measuring employee progress
• Recognizing work well done
• And documenting all of the above

To develop and implement a perfect plan that works successfully you must be thinking about the following goals in your evaluation process.

Communicating Clear Goals and Their Outcomes

Both the manager and the employee should be clear about the goals, their outcomes and how they will contribute to company objectives in the long run.

Personal and Organizational Development

The evaluation process seeks not only organizational growth but the growth of the employee as well i.e. both personal and organizational development.

Tangible Evidence of Performance Expectations

The process ensures the employees know what is expected out of them and provides both legal and ethical evidence that establishes the employees were actively involved in knowing their responsibilities and performance expectations.

Suggesting Performance Improvement Plan

The process helps establish an improvement plan if the employee is unable to show up to the mark performance enabling those who want to strive for better performance.

Evidence to Unbiased Promotions

The process acts as a source of providing an evidence to unbiased promotion, compensation and recognition measures with a documentation clearly presenting success and failures in achieving goals.

Every job when done right produces the right results; the same applies to conducting evaluations. If the process is fair, there is no reason for either party (managers and employees) to dread them.

When the term “employee engagement” strikes your ears what does it bring to you? A skill, that has to be worked out by the employee himself. If you still think, employee engagement is one of those areas which employee himself needs to get across; you should round off your assessments.

Surprisingly, most of the surveys conducted on engaging employees say that the key to disengagement is the relationship of employees with their direct managers. Interestingly, it’s a good reason. Why? If a manager gets to know it, he can always work on management styles and improve productivity.

To make this employee-manager association work better, here are some small and easy tips for managers;

Open Communication:

If you really want things to work smoothly, you need to realize the importance of communication and its impact on overall growth of a company.

• Be approachable. If any of your employees want to discuss personal or professional issue, he should know you are there to listen and respond in a reasonable way.

• Reply to their messages. Respond to them before the issue is long forgotten.

• Be friendly rather than being bossy. This increases their level of trust.

Appreciation:

Acknowledgment, praise and respect would charge you nothing. However, it would bring you a lot. You can create your own small recognition gestures to show your employees that their effort is being noticed and appreciated.

• Say well done and acknowledge when they come up with new ideas.

• Take them for coffee when they achieve their targets in time.

• Remember their birthdays

Be Sincere:

Last but not least, be honest and truthful in whatever you do for your employees. Know about their private lives because personal issues shape employee's performance at work. This would also build loyalty and trust.

Do you want your organization to reach the heights of success? There is surely no chance of getting “No” as the answer. Look around your company; observe those worn out people spending day and night to earn. EARN! Does it sound they are after MONEY, a typical retention approach, derisively! Perhaps “EARN” could suggest anything, it could even be earning a name for you or being appreciated by the boss or trying desperately to being valued. Why not you reward them before their sweat dries out, their spirits go down and with that you better be prepared to see the demise of your estate you dreamed to build and flourish so very much.

So bring it up today, think about better recognizing your employees, devise plans to hand over employee recognition awards. It’s a deal that costs you almost nothing and brings with it to you the “dream estate” you ever tried to build so desperately. To begin with, you can check out a few of the ideas here

• Plaques, trophies and awards serve as a constant reminder that hard work has not gone unrecognized. Tangible recognition awards are good energizers letting your workforce pull through the rest of the year giving their best to the organization.
• Company lunches are another good appreciation awards. After all how much it takes to offer a free lunch by the company once in a year? These gestures show the employees they are being cared of and their contributions not forgotten.
• Another wonderful idea is to plan surprise achievement celebrations for an employee or a whole bunch of employees.  You can even think of a behind the scenes award for those who are not usually in the limelight but sitting at the back, invisible they do awesome jobs.

There is a lot more you can do, the only thing is you need to think about it. Take out a little out of your precious time this session, jostle your mind a little, come up with ideas, incorporate them in your organization and that’s it! You are ready to see the wonders that you’ve not uncovered yet.

Whether done formally or informally, no matter big or large employee evaluation is a part of every organization. The driving force behind is majorly company growth. Whatever the aim is, the system should be unbiased and leave no sense of dissatisfaction or doubt among the employees. Some of the best practices that can be opted as parameters of evaluation are:

Evaluating Specific Employee Traits

This can be one among the many factors of evaluation.  This may comprise of punctuality, dependability, cooperation and collaboration and many others you can add depending on the culture of your organization.

Evaluating Behavioral Aspects

This is another important aspect to look at. Observing what each employee does, the mannerism each employee possesses that later on attributes to the organization’s culture. It can make or break an organization’s image in the industry as each employee is an ambassador of the particular organization. Therefore, it is very essential to let the individual know about the areas he/she excels in and the areas that require improvement.

Evaluating Performance Results

This is the most important part of the evaluation process that focuses on the performance of each employee. This may comprise of the quantity and quality of work done, ability to meet deadlines, tasks accomplished etc. The process helps in gauging the employee’s contribution to the company growth and bottom line.

The major purpose of evaluation should be providing feedback to the workforce as every employee wants to know what his/her supervisor thinks of their performance. This provides the employees with an opportunity to correct deficiencies and excel in whatever endeavor they undertake.

When employees know they are going to be evaluated by everyone around them, they tend to invest in building relationships that will give them a good return at the time of their evaluation. These relationships tend to boost positivity and at the same time strengthen the inter-team communication network. It also means that employees are more careful around everybody, which ultimately leaves less or (in some cases) no room for tardiness issues.

360 feedback system ensures that all employees are engaged with each other during their work hours throughout the year. Because they are going to be evaluated by their peers, they exhibit positive gestures throughout the year which ultimately turns into a strong bond between those two employees and stays for the years to come. This way, interdepartmental communication increases and teams are able to work in a much more productive environment that generates synergies.

A 360 feedback system also helps in developing a strong relationship between employee and his manager. A manager is able to protect the employee from inappropriate feedback from the peers and also able to communicate the right purpose for each feedback he has received. After looking at the feedback from all peers, the employee and manager can sit down analyze and  verify the feedback and determine which areas need improvement.

However, not all evaluation scenarios are 360 feedback compatible. Before you introduce such a system in your organization, make sure your employees have what it takes to listen to their weaknesses from their peers in a positive manner and be able to build upon those areas and lead to self-improvement. If you have doubts, might as well wait until they are ready.

360 feedback has become a major tool of evaluation in so many organizations these days. It offers an opportunity not only to executives but teams as well to confidentially gather information that is accurate and beneficial. It helps in increased self-awareness, accountability and performance. Apart of these, what it actually enables discovering among employees is:

• How an individual is performing; not a glimpse but a fuller picture
• After the feedback acquired, how much improvement in behaviors and performance is seen
• A more effective communication channel and increased recognition among employees

With 360 everyone is evaluated the same way whether it is the top management or subordinates promoting fairness and a cultural shift. The process clearly highlights an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and how much they may impact others. It enables differentiating what an individual should continue doing, what should be stopped and what other horizons are yet to be discovered.

There are also some difficulties in implementing such a system like people are not prepared to give and receive feedback, the feedback is not honest, it increases administrative burden as filling out forms becomes hectic. But still, with all the issues in view, the process is seen to be beneficial.

Before going for such a system you must lay down proper foundation for the program to run successfully. Be very clear that one size does not fit all plus the objectives of the feedback are well thought out. The last thing you must know is “can you handle the feedback”. These are a few simple things that must be known beforehand for an effective 360 evaluation.

Many organizations are facing rapidly evolving business challenges. To surmount these defies they need to cope up with constant changes and need to ensure their projects and tasks are aligned with business objectives. A performance management system is what is required at such situations as it helps in measuring activities and tracking whether targets and business objectives are successfully achieved.

A good performance management system can ensure

• Employees fully understand how their contributions may affect organizational goals and challenges.
• Employees have the necessary skills and equally know what is expected of them.
• Effective communication channel within the organization

 Organizations’ successfully implementing such a system is seen to have an increased rate of employee job satisfaction as such a system enables

• Providing opportunities for career growth
• Learning and development opportunities with leadership programs
• Fair evaluation and distribution of rewards and incentives
• Providing regular feedback to the employees
• Providing social recognition on astounding performance

The benefits of having a management system are three dimensional. In terms of the organization, it is improved productivity and retention and overall increase in organization’s success rate and performance.

In terms of managers, it is effective time management and consistent performance tracking with reduced conflicts.

And

In terms of employees, it is self-assessment, clear expectations, improved performance, job satisfaction and clear career paths.

To sum it up, it is a perfect tool to realize organizational goals that implements competitive human resource management strategies and helps drive all tasks from the bottom level to a single common goal.