Employee performance evaluations can help you recognize when employees need additional training or tools to be successful. They can also become a source of contention and frustration in the workplace. Employers can change the dynamic of evaluations. Utilizing them as a resource to gauge not only how employees are doing but also how the company is doing through the perception of their employees.
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Better Understanding of Employees Needs
Many times, companies place too much personal responsibility on employees without giving them the tools they need to succeed. Managers blame employees for poor performance. If an employee is underperforming, there’s a good chance that they’re a great employee who’s not been given the tools they need to do their job. It isn’t always physical tools that allow an employee to be successful; a tool might be levels of clearance, training, or a clear channel of communication. Performance Evaluations are the perfect time to discuss these probable issues and understand the needs of your employees better to perform at their best.
Reasonable Discipline Through Performance Appraisals
When you have regular employee evaluations, it becomes much easier to separate those who are trying to succeed in a challenging situation and those who simply don’t care enough about their jobs to put in the effort. Don’t discipline your employees for the mistakes your company is making. Have open conversations with them and make sure they have everything they need to be successful.
Discipline should not be implemented until a clear path to success is created and ultimately ignored by the employee. You don’t want to punish an employee for something they have no control over. When you do that, you’re creating disgruntled employees. When you create disgruntled employees, your entire workplace suffers.
Accelerated Performance Through Regular Recognition
On the flip side employees who do good work deserve recognition. There are employees who consistently go above and beyond expectations. They are the ones that managers depend on and generally take on more work than other employees. Many managers think these employees are OK and let these employees continue their workloads without complaint. However, this isn’t the correct approach. Without opening a conversation, it can be hard to tell if these employees are close to burnout or not.
If an employee is regularly exceeding expectations, that person deserves to know about it and be rewarded for it. Employee performance evaluations allow you to talk about these contributions and to discuss what that person sees as fair compensation for a job well done. When you acknowledge someone’s contributions, they feel better about continuing to exceed expectations. Performance evaluations help your employees’ set goals and allow managers to re-evaluate workloads.
Improved Employee Retention by Creating a Pathway to Success
Evaluations can improve employee retention if done correctly. When your employees are given clear goals, open lines of communication, and reward systems that they agree to and participate in, they will be happier, more engaged, and more productive. These steps can lead to higher employee retention.
Employee reviews that are mishandled can also be very disruptive to your workplace . Of the more than 1,000 U.S. employees polled in Reflektive’s survey, 85% said an unfair job review would push them to consider quitting altogether. Of that group, more than half said they were either “very likely” or “extremely likely” to think about leaving the company. Therefore, creating a pathway to success is a better alternative to discipline – you need your employees to feel like their relationship with the company is cooperative and not based on fear.
Employee performance evaluations are about establishing communication between employees and their management teams. Evaluations should emphasize rewarding people who perform well over disciplining those who perform poorly, and options for improvement should always be considered cooperatively without instilling fear of repercussion.
Engaged employees will stay with your company longer, and evaluations create clear expectations and opportunities to discuss whatever issues might arise in the workplace. When you handle performance evaluations with care, everyone wins.
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