The Best Way to Hold Employees Accountable for High Standards - Formal Review

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A Best Practice - A commitment to meaningful evaluation content; and reward someone above for reviews turned in on time.

Formal Performance Reviews are not required by law.  Some HR consultants and lawyers are suggesting to business owners to avoid them altogether.  That's not bad advice if (1) You write untimely, subjective, and shallow appraisals, and (2) you don't have regular 1 on 1 Informal Performance Reviews with your employees.

But if you are going to do Formal Employee Performance Reviews, The following information may be of some help...

A Formal Performance Evaluation is typically a semi-annual or annual review of an employee's job performance during the respective period; usually coincides with pay raises, with the overall performance rating determining the amount of raise awarded.

• The Formal Performance Evaluation should be typed, and presented in a paper document.

• Focus should be on Job Performance in the area of job knowledge, productivity, customer service, and quality of work.

• Each area's rating should be supported with statistics and objective observations.

Attention leaders: "Managers do what you MODEL and INSPECT, not what you EXPECT."

Now that you know what a Performance Review should look like... now... how do you get your managers to write them and turn them in on time?

In the company where I learned the most (perhaps everything) about WRITING performance evaluations was as a first level team manager in a very large corporation.  15 - 20 Formal Employee Reviews were due every six months, and I NEVER missed ONE, I was NEVER even LATE turning one in. And these were not checkbox, fill-in the blanks Performance Reviews.  We were expected to not only compile statistics, we were also required to support each section with objective observations and comments about the period in review (In other words, a REAL Performance Review).

How did they manage to get me to be so faithful to the system?

I just answered the question.  Keywords: "they manage."  The company managed the Performance Review system.  The trickle of heat started at HR, down through the General Manager, to the Assistant General Manager, to the Department Manager, to the Shift Manager, and finally to the Unit Manager (Me).

Every quarter, Department Managers were awarded "points" from the General Manager for various aspects of department performance, one of which was on-time Performance Reviews. The points tied to a nice little bonus for the Department Manager.  So if you failed to complete a Performance Review, you were directly impacting the wallet of your boss...that's HEAT. Not to mention everyone in the chain of command from HR to your peers, would know you dropped the ball...That's EGO.

Appealing to ego, and dangling negative consequences went a long way.  To tell you the truth, I don't recall ANY manager failing to turn in a review under that management system.

Written by Darin Hanks - HRIT Inc.

 

• Our Performance Evaluation Template comes with more content-tips on writing a performance evaluation.

• Surprise! Another gratuitous video commercial!  Our Training Video Catalog lists videos produced specifically on the subject of Performance Evaluations.

 

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Links to all articles on this topic....

What do you need to begin managing and evaluating performance? Follow the links below for a how-to article for each point......
	Job Descriptions: A concise summary of primary job duties for each position.
	Meaningful, achievable, clearly stated, and measurable Job Performance Standards.
	Formal Job Training, and a commitment to a "drip system" of continuing education.
	A commitment to coaching; monthly Informal Performance Evaluations.
	Firm, fair, and consistent Progressive Discipline practices.
	A managed, company-wide standard Formal Performance Evaluation system.

 

 

Other Topics ...   Writing Company Policy for an Employee Handbook   Employee Discipline & Correction Action

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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