An employee performance evaluation is an opportunity for both the employee and the manager to review the employee’s job performance, the quality of their deliverables, strengths, and areas of improvement with respect to documented expectations. This should be a two-way, open discussion to ensure both the employee and the manager are on the same page.

While the performance review/evaluation should not yield any surprises, the fact is, either the employees don’t really care about the process because they feel their fate is pre-judged or they have anxiety because they have received very little feedback throughout the year and are uncertain about the direction of the review or the observations that will be made.

While preparing for and delivering the employee evaluation can seem like a daunting task, if the feedback process is followed throughout the year, this really should be a recap/summary of what was being discussed during the year.

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The Objective of the process:

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Establish an effective performance feedback program that is beneficial to both the employee and management. A process that is well understood, agreed upon, and consistently executed, yielding positive results and measurable outcomes.

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Sample List of Benefits:

• Improves Manager & Employee relationships
• Improves connectedness of the Employee to the organization
• Helps the employee to understand their performance metrics, how they are aligning to expectations, and where they need to make improvements
• Improves the productivity and efficiency of the employees through better connectedness.

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Sample List of Observations:

• Employees are only getting annual reviews
• Quality of the reviews lacking. Not substantive
• The feedback is designed to support the pre-judged rating
• Managers are scrambling at the last minute to complete the reviews
• Reviews are short and not meaningful

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Sample List of Recommendations:

• Use the Employee Development, Employee Feedback, Employee 1-on-1, and Employee Team Meetings process to engage the employee
• Provide feedback through regular cycles and not at the end of the year
• Feedback should be given in a manner that allows the employee to make adjustments to correct any misalignment with expectations.

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Assessment Questions:

1. Do you have a documented Performance Review process?
2. Is the process executed at the Organization and Department level consistently?
3. Are there any deviations from what is being done against what was defined?
4. How often do you meet with your employees?
5. Do you have a structured approach to the discussions?
6. Do you provide feedback ahead of time?
7. Do you share meeting minutes?
8. Do you build a roadmap with the employee on any misalignment with expectations?
9. Do you manage the implementation of the roadmap?