Reexamining Performance Evaluations for the 21st Century

The modern workplace is not the one our grandparents knew, gone are the days when people and companies stayed committed for entire careers. The market dynamics has placed increased pressure on both companies and their employees resulting in constant change and consequently attrition. Those who don’t leave become burnt out.

So what can you do today that will make your employees feel valued?  The new employee evaluation is one of the big things.

Gone are the days of the arduous process of doing annual reviews that were used to calculate how much of a raise or a bonus each employee received.  Modern employee performance evaluations are much more dynamic, driven by goals and results, and they serve to benefit your employee by showing how he or she is contributing to the overall performance of the company.  It makes them much more likely to demonstrate their value to you, and it gives you the chance to work with your employee to find the next step in their career path.

New performance reviews are developed collaboratively with a lot of input from the employee, instead of handing the employee a list of things that he or she must accomplish in the coming year.  Obtaining that buy-in is far more effective at eliciting the kind of response you want.  It gives them a purpose to pursue that is meaningful, and in the 21st century, that is one of the key factors in what makes a desirable workplace.

You as the supervisor still need to provide honest and timely feedback to your employee, but the rest of the evaluation should be focused on guiding your employee to finding ways to best use their skills and advance their career.  The review should ensure that the goals and objectives for the coming year are clear, and proper support is provided where necessary.

Goals that involve teams must also be structured in such a way as to have precise matrices used to evaluate them.  Setting these standards early on with your employees will ensure that everyone will understand them and be able to achieve them.

Furthermore, the new work dynamics demand that we look at the whole approach of setting KPIs and performance evaluation and decentralize it, and structure a multi-spectrum array where the employee empowerment or lack there of is directly evaluated with the the employees achievement.

By doing so, you will have a more productive workplace that is also less prone to attrition and higher job satisfaction among employees.

Every organization has highly driven 10% to 20% employees, imagine the end results if the this number can be taken to 80%.

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