Improving employee performance is simple if you follow 10 simple best practices.
By Douglas DeRubeis
Business is about making money, and that’s why every company activity should be geared toward the bottom line. That
includes performance reviews. Reviews should be a tool to improve employee performance so they can make more money
for the company. So, if employee evaluations are merely an obligatory exercise with no correlation to performance,
they serve no purpose and might as well be discontinued. However, companies that truly focus on improving employee
performance reap the rewards. The following 10 best practices will help ensure that performance reviews contribute
to that effort:
Keep evaluations performance-based. Whether employees work in the field or the office, evaluation processes
and forms should be designed around the skills and behaviors that help the employer generate income. Only two
things matter - whether the employee is making money for the company, and whether he or she is creating an
environment where coworkers can also make money for the company. The second is important because the employees
who are go-getters and aggressively seek to make money for the company can sometimes to so unpleasant toward
coworkers that they lower morale. Yes, people should make money for the company, but not by adversely affecting
the productivity of others.
Use objective rating systems. Interpretive essays written by supervisors can be subjective, or be perceived
as subjective, and potentially bring legal difficulties upon the company. Therefore, it’s best to use objective
scoring methods on evaluation forms, such as numerical scales of one to five or one to 10. Additionally, these
numerical values can be weighted according to the importance of the skill or behavior being evaluated. Design
all questions around the skills and behaviors that make money for the company. Avoid rating people on personality
traits because they are just preferences and again, subjective.
No surprises. Managers who don’t have eyeball-to-eyeball discussions about performance with employees in the
course of their daily work usually take the opportunity at review time to unleash all the complaints that have
built up. Don’t ignore an employee’s unsatisfactory performance for months only to surprise them with the bad
news at evaluation time. Such surprises just make people defensive and don’t promote a productive discussion.
Don’t wait until after the formal evaluation to change behavior. If an employee has been observed to lack
skills or demonstrate undesirable behavior, alert him or her to the problem and begin teaching training or
coaching immediately. At the time of the formal review, record progress toward behavior change or betterment
of skills. If no progress has been made, the employee should no longer be with the company at evaluation
time.
Don’t use periodic evaluation as a substitute for regular praise for a job well-done. If too much time passes
between commendable performance and the evaluation that applauds it, the evaluation does not serve as a performance
tool, and any motivational benefit will be lost.
Perform evaluations no more often than quarterly and no less often than annually. Companies whose supervisors
are not regularly teaching, training and coaching their employees need more frequent evaluations. On the other hand,
companies where managers have frequent face-to-face discussions with employees about their skills and behaviors,
where supervisors train, teach and coach on a daily basis, only need annual summations of the entire year’s
progress.
The evaluator should be the employee’s immediate supervisor. Anyone more distant, such as a manager two levels
up or someone from HR, would be relying on second-hand information. Being evaluated by someone who barely knows the
employee leads to job dissatisfaction. It is also a pointless exercise that cannot truly improve performance.
Cover the entire evaluation period. Supervisors should keep a diary or file on employees so that performance
information is available for the entire evaluation period. The tendency is to remember only the most recent weeks,
and employees catch on to that quite well. It’s remarkable how much performance improves in those last few weeks
before a review and then declines again right after it.
Follow up with teaching, training and coaching. Evaluations are not the disciplinary tool or the behavioral
change tool. Merely pointing out deficiencies and expecting the employee to do something about them is not going
to accomplish anything. Properly designed evaluations that itemize critical job skills and behaviors are a tool
to improve performance - provided they are followed up with the appropriate remedial activities. Once those
performance improvement actions have been taken, evaluate the employee again, record progress and continue the
training or coaching if necessary. Most employees really want to perform at the highest level and welcome
systematic support. In designing training programs, recognize that different people learn in different ways.
For instance, don’t lecture those who respond primarily to visual stimuli, and don’t draw pictures for logic-
driven people who thrive on flowcharts and blueprints. Training is one area where the Golden Rule really does
not apply. A trainer who trains everyone the way he or she wants to be trained will only reach those who happen
to be like-minded.
Design customer evaluation forms. Off-the-shelf evaluation forms will likely have questions that don’t apply
to the construction trade and might miss items that are critical to a construction company’s success. If company
personnel are not equipped to design evaluations, hire someone with knowledge of the industry who can capture the
specific performance-based activities that generate dollars for the company.
The purpose of formal reviews is to summarize the activity of the evaluation period, including discussions about performance, praise
given, deficiencies identified and progress made toward improvement. Reviews are not the teaching or training tool. If skills and
behaviors need changing, work on changing them during the entire evaluation period.
Changing Performance
Knowing what constitutes good performance and therefore makes money for the company, is the first prerequisite to improving performance.
If an employee’s performance is found to be inadequate, taking effective remedial action depends on knowing the root cause of the
problem. Poor performance can have many causes, both obvious and hidden, ranging from work-related to personal. Digging deeper to find
the root cause of an employee’s poor performance takes a patient supervisor who is a good interviewer and trusted by the employee.
Performance reviews should be followed up with performance improvement activities and those activities, in turn, should be monitored and
measured against the bottom line. Improvement, or lack thereof, will show whether employees are paid adequately for their contribution
to the company’s bottom line.