A Different Perspective on Employee Evaluations

By Kathleen D. Packard
kathleen@BeCauseBusiness.com

Employee evaluations are typically anticipated with dread by employees and managers alike. Managers see them as a time when they must be tough and judgmental. They must look for what’s wrong in the employee’s work and then they must point it out. Worst of all, there must be some threat, subtle or otherwise, that will motivate the employee to change.


Employees are typically clueless as to what is going to come up in the review, but they know they can look forward to having their deficiencies exposed. There will be discomfort for both parties, they will stumble through the encounter, then both will heave a sign of relief that it’s over and they’ll try to put it behind them like a bad dream. The next time there will be no memory of what was discussed previously and they’ll go through the whole unpleasant experience again, with no progress toward what either party really wants.


It doesn’t have to be that way. Rather than positioning the manager as the executioner and the employee as victim . . . oops, sorry, that’s my own experience. Let’s say . . . rather than positioning the manager as “doer” and the employee as “done to,” you can approach the process from a more collaborative coach/player perspective. This is how you do it.


In your first meeting with the employee, both of you reach agreement on what goals or actions are appropriate to work on and what time frame is reasonable for completion. Next, decide together what behaviors or indicators you will use to know when that target or goal is reached. Third, agree together on what the consequences will be if the target is hit or the target is missed. This doesn’t need to be a raise or a demotion or anything so dramatic. It can be a small acknowledgment or a simple reward or “punishment.” But it will be something that both of you agree on. Lastly, ask the employee what kind and how often they want feedback. It might be daily, weekly or monthly. How do they want that feedback delivered? It might be a daily question, a written note, or a two-minute meeting. Business coach Richard Reardon says that 25% of success can be attributed to having goals, but 75% is the result of feedback.


It must be the manager’s absolute commitment to follow through with what has been agreed upon. Otherwise, there can be no expectation for commitment from the employee. And the performance review will be a review of the performance of both the coach and the player. In this setup, everyone knows what is expected of them and by when.


Remember that as a coach, you will be prodding your employees to stretch themselves. As they become comfortable with the process, you will find that they will push themselves. Everyone wants to feel like they are headed somewhere. And everyone wants to know where they stand. Bring the process into the open and everyone’s experience will be positive. Share with the employee the goals you have for the company and the goals you have set for yourself as the owner. And ask the employee for feedback on the process itself. Together you can move the company forward and use your roles as vehicles for your own personal growth.

Wow! Wild Web News

Envisioning what's next or for that matter, trying to get hold of what's now is making me dizzy. I love a fast dynamic, but whaoo, what I'm seeing is something else.

Last night I had a long phone conversation with my 26-year old son, Esana Anderson (digital media geek) and we took a spin across the Internet, he in Orlando and me in Oregon. Over a couple hours he introduced me to a number of new destination sites, programs and methods for gathering and sharing information.

We started at www.Digg.com. This site features listings of Internet news-like stories rated by how many people "dig" them by voting. The top stories are the most votes in the most recent past. Talk about breaking news, this is it and it's on ALL kinds of information.

He had me do a search of a couple topics that interest me, like coaching, management consulting and group facilitation. There are search options like last seven days, weeks, months or forever and more.

He had me download Vienna software on my Mac G4 laptop, then showed me how to transfer the RSS feed from Digg subject searches. Now when I run Vienna it links automatically to the Digg subject searches and I see breaking news on the exact subjects I'm interested in.

Boy, I can't wait to show my clients how they can stay up to date about breaking news in their various industries. Heh heh