Elevate Employee Performance

How to Evaluate Employee Performance? 

Short of following employees around to monitor their performance all day, it can be difficult to get an accurate idea of how efficiently and effectively individual staff members get their work done. If employees know they are being evaluated, they are likely to do things differently than if there is no oversight. 

The following suggestions are time-tested solutions that have been proven to give a fair assessment of employee performance. They have been developed by industrial-organizational psychologists, human resources experts, and other leading professionals in the field of employee productivity and satisfaction. These techniques are great for businesses of all sizes and work for employees in nearly any industry. 

First, Set Standards 

It is neither reasonable nor practical to hold employees accountable for completing specific tasks and behaving in certain ways if those tasks and behaviors are never clearly defined. In order for staff to meet or exceed your expectations, they need to have a firm understanding of exactly what those expectations are. 

These standards should be put in writing and well understood by every employee. Do you want a dish to look a certain way when it comes out of the kitchen? Take a picture of a good example as a reference. Do you want your staff to follow a dress code? Clearly state which types of clothing are acceptable and which aren’t. Do you want the operating room to be clean and set up in a certain way? Make a checklist of specific tasks that need to be completed, and how often, and watch your operations improve automatically. 

It’s not enough to give vague instructions like, “Employees should dress appropriately” and “The warehouse should be kept clean.” These do not contain any usable information and are wide open for interpretation – your ideas of what “professional dress” entails may be very different from someone else’s. For standards to be attainable, they need to specify workable steps, and employees need to be able to clearly visualize what it is that you want. 

Set SMART Goals That Relate to Performance Standards 

The SMART system of setting goals has been around since the 1980s and has become an extremely popular tool for creating goals in both personal and professional settings. It gives a useful framework for how to set goals for your staff that will help them to succeed. SMART is an acronym for the following words.

• Specific: Goals need to be specific, so you will be able to tell when you have achieved them. For example, “Tables should be cleared and re-set within 10 minutes of the customer’s departure” is more specific than “Re-set tables promptly when customers leave.” 
• Measurable: Goals should have a number value attached to them so the progress can be seen. For example, “Sell three more drinks per night on average for the month of July” is a measurable goal, whereas “Sell more drinks” is difficult to measure. More than what? 
• Ambitious: Don’t be afraid to think big! Setting ambitious goals gives employees something to work toward and results in greater feelings of accomplishment than setting the bar too low. On the other hand, you don’t want to set your employees up for failure. Some have suggested that the A in SMART might also stand for Attainable, to strike a balance between grand, lofty goals and goals that are easy to reach. 
• Relevant: Make sure that employees understand the purpose of the goal–connect the dots in their heads. Seemingly arbitrary requirements will be more difficult to convince staff members to follow. When people see the connection between the goal and a desirable outcome, it makes more sense for them to be motivated to achieve that goal.  
• Time Bound: Is there an end in sight? The most effective goals are set in conjunction with a time frame for reaching them. Jolt allows you to specify the exact timeframe for each element in a way that is clear for all to understand. 

Measure Progress Over Time

Even the most diligent and conscientious employees can have a bad day now and again. That’s why taking assessments of your employees’ progress should be done with regular frequency, not just once in a great while. More frequent and long-term evaluations make it easier to notice changes in an employee’s work habits and performance. This can be a great tool for preventing burnout. Suppose a staff member’s progress has leveled off or decreased. In that case, it could be that they are feeling a sense of stagnation with their job or a lack of recognition and might benefit significantly from additional responsibilities or an improved system of accountability. On a related note, team members who are recognized and rewarded for improving over time are more likely to continue their upward progress. 

Review With the Employee – Be Specific and Honest 

Giving feedback, in particular negative feedback, is an extremely delicate process. This is doubly true in cases in which the evaluation is tied to a financial consequence. Too harsh, and the employee may give up and quit altogether. Too light, and they might not fully realize that they need to make changes. 

Another complicating factor is that receiving feedback is largely tied to personality. Some people thrive on praise, others prefer an approach that focuses on what they can do to improve. 

In most cases, it is best to simply and clearly state what the employee can do to get better results on their next review. 

Sugar coating and using euphemisms can be seen as demeaning or just confusing. While some experts promote techniques such as the “compliment sandwich” as an attempt to cushion the blow, others say that it both diminishes the meaningfulness of the compliments and takes attention away from constructive criticism, which might be dismissed. 

Ultimately, the best practice seems to be trusting that your employees are adults that have the emotional maturity to handle honest, specific feedback about areas they could improve. 

Ask For Feedback 

What better way to know how your staff feels about your evaluation system than simply asking them? Even better, give your employees the opportunity to leave feedback about your evaluation procedures anonymously, so they don’t feel pressured to mention only the positive aspects. All too often, management implements a new procedure or system without consulting the employees who will actually be using it on how it might affect their day-to-day tasks. Take the time to ask for honest feedback; you might be surprised at how much people have to say. With that feedback, you’ll want to quickly make changes to your processes, so employees see that you take feedback seriously. Jolt allows you to quickly change your processes with the click of a button, whether it’s one location, or thousands.