Employee Performance Reviews: What Are The Best Practices?

The best review systems all share a few common traits. The first step is to make your review system the same for everyone and make sure to document it all. This is only common sense, really you should always document all communication with employees that have relevance to their wages and position. From a legal standpoint it is only being in compliance with state and federal employment laws.

The forms for each employee should be the same, unless you have different levels, such as management and crew/staff. The forms should include the following: - The employee's name - His/her job title - And date of this review and date of last review

Each job position should have a description of the duties expected. Each aspect of the job should be rated according to a scale that is not negotiable. Something like good, fair and poor usually suffice. The form should always be signed by both parties and have space for employee comment.

Do Not Treat Reviews as an Afterthought: Do not delay the performance review. Sure there are things that can happen that would preclude you from doing a review, but you should make every attempt to get the review done in a timely fashion. A lot of HR workers or managers put off reviews when they are sure the outcome may be unpleasant. It is not a help to you or the employee to do this. You have an obligation to both the company and the employee to make this review happen. It could be the jolt the employee needs to get on track.

Don't Attack In Your Feed Back: The objective of the performance review is to inform the employee how they are doing when their job performance is compared to the company standard. If the employee is less than ideal and you are not going to fire them, use this review as an opportunity to motivate the employee. A lot of managers go into these types of reviews with an attitude of anger or disappointment. Instead of harping on the things the employee does wrong, play up the positives and give insight on how they can improve in the other areas. Together you and the employee could come up with a plan of action that would enhance his/her performance. It may be as simple as a little retraining in the areas they are falling short at.

Finally, know that by giving a timely and honest assessment to your employee you can help the employee become a more valuable member of the team. You can be honest without being acerbic. As a leader you must be prepared to shoulder some of the blame for certain aspects of an employee's failure. Find out if there were ways that you could have helped the person before now and be willing to move forward along those lines. Make the review a moment full of expectation and opportunity and the employees' will not only welcome them, but also look forward to them.