Six Brilliant Tips About Board Assessment Tools

Nobody much likes performance evaluation systems. Managers find them unworkable and uncomfortable. Workers dread them. And several experts think we should scrap them altogether.

But for anybody who is a working manager you don't get much choice. You have got to do performance evaluations on your people using the system your organization has in place.

Start by understanding that you will find really two different things which go by the name, "performance evaluation." One of those things is your organization's formal performance appraisal process.

Do what ever you must to handle your organization's evaluation system. It's important to work with whatever system your organization has devised. Someday you could be able to change it, but not now. Devote your time and energy to making the system deliver good results.

However the formal system is only involved in the story. Usually the evaluation that happens there is like a report card. It's really a summary judgment of performance that took place over a period of time.

Give notice should you have to start documenting behavior. Most of the time, your suggestion to change behavior or performance will be informal. That implies you will not need to document. And quite often your suggestion and coaching will lead to improved behavior.

But sometimes you'll need to let folks know that they're not doing well enough. Should they keep doing what they're doing, you'll have to start documenting their behavior. Let them know before your start.

Then, if you must document, do some things. Keep good records of the performance or behavior that you are tracking. Be specific about what happened, when and where.

Keep good records of your counseling meetings with your subordinate. What did you say? What did she or he say? How did you agree that things would change?

Making small course corrections on the way has a couple of advantages. For starters, small corrections are far easier to make than big ones, so your odds of a successful outcome go up.

Second, by making small corrections and documenting your counsel and also your subordinate's behavior, you've got the issue on the table. In the event the time arrives for formal performance evaluation, your subordinate will know where she or he has come up short. And you'll determine what they've got to say about how they are doing. No surprises.

Take enough time within the formal session. In one organization where I did research we compared the time that top supervisors dedicated to the once-a-year performance appraisal meeting to the time that other supervisors took. The very best supervisors spent almost two times as long in the formal session as their less-effective peers.

Nevertheless, if there were not any surprises, what did they spend time on? They talked about growth as well as the future. That is more enjoyable and many more productive than going over what did and did not happen since the last review.

Make agreements on the shall happen next. Be sure you leave the formal performance evaluation session with a clear plan for how your subordinate will develop throughout the next period and what you're going to do to help.

Set milestones for your agreements. Determine who will do what and exactly what the deadlines are. Determine how performance should change.

Here is what to remember. The performance company evaluation software that makes an impact takes place every day, every time you encounter someone who works for you. If you take every opportunity to coach, counsel, encourage and correct your people, and if you document the place you must, there will be no surprises at evaluation time. In which case you can use the evaluation time for you to help people grow and develop.