The need to improve the employees’​ performance evaluation system

https://www.linkedin.com/company/enlyten-circle/

Performance evaluation management is a vital part of any business, and evaluating employees’ achievements each year is an essential step in ensuring success. However, not all performance evaluations are effective or produce valuable results, as many organizations fail to consider the employee’s growth in the targets and how the employees can evolve to be more creative for the organization’s benefit.

1. The importance of a new look at performance evaluation

Organizations understand the importance of performance evaluation and its role in achieving their goal, but with more attention paid to employees’ competencies and a growth mindset, more areas of improvement can be captured.

Performance evaluation is looked at as the process for deciding the annual increments or annual bonuses. Actually, some managers use this process to pressure employees sometimes to achieve unrealistic targets. This look must be improved.

Performance evaluation should look at as the process of improving the employee’s skills and competencies to contribute to the growth of the company and rewarding them for making this happen.

2. Why traditional performance evaluations are often ineffective

Traditional performance evaluations are often ineffective because they focus mainly on outcomes and achievements, with less emphasis on the journey to success. This usually lead to try making the targets achieved or looked like they were achieved. In addition, the judgment becomes subjective as clarity was missing while setting the goals. Additionally, many traditional performance evaluation practices need to capture input from stakeholders, including employees themselves.

It is not only what the business wants from employees but also how the employees can achieve those needs. Organizations should encourage employees to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and not be restricted by a set of targets defined at the outset of the year but be more flexible and adaptive to the business change and to their situational change. The targets can change to match the business needs as long as they are clearly defined in a SMART way and help employees to grow.

Moreover, a clear plan of action on how the employee can achieve those targets must be laid out from the outset, and a development plan should draft based on that to include on-job mentoring, business trips, collaboration with a different department or intensive courses.

For example, if an employee works in customer service, they need to have excellent communication skills. Their target should include developing these skills over a certain period. The organization could measure this development through customer feedback surveys or satisfaction scores before and after the training. The same logic can also be used when setting up other competency-based targets.

3. Open discussion and a chance to change

The evaluation process is not one time a year process. It should be continuous & open communication between employees and their leaders. Leaders must encourage everyone to talk about their needs to achieve their targets and how he thinks he can improve the current situation.

Employees must give a space of psychological safety where they can try and fail without being penalized by cutting their bouns. Of course, there are limits to everything, but growth comes from errors, and learning comes from feedback.

In addition, the leaders should give a chance to change the targets if those targets seem to be above the limits of the employees. At the end of the day, the aim is to grow the business through growing employees because business is people.

Tips on creating meaningful development programs based on employees’ strengths and weaknesses.

1. Assess employees’ current skills and identify strengths, weaknesses and areas for development.

2. Create individualized development plans based on employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Each project should outline the specific goals to be achieved along with a timeline for completion.

3. Provide guidance, support and resources to help employees reach their goals by assigning mentors or coaches, offering training courses and providing time for learning activities such as study groups or reading material reviews.

4. Set up regular check-ins with employees to review progress towards their goals and provide feedback. This will help ensure that employees are on track and allow time for necessary mid-course corrections.

5. Celebrate successes and recognize progress made towards achieving goals. Celebrations can be as simple as verbal praise or public recognition to more elaborate rewards such as bonuses or promotions.

Conclusion :

Performance evaluations should be seen as an opportunity for employees to grow and develop their skills. By providing the right amount of guidance, support and feedback, leaders can create meaningful development programs that will help employees reach their full potential. Doing so will not only result in higher performance from individual employees but also improve organizational performance as a whole.