Performance Evaluations: Good or Bad?
On a daily basis, companies are confronted with
a myriad of situations that have a significant influence
on the overall morale of the organization. However
it appears nothing presents a greater obstacle to
organizations than maintaining a healthy professional
relationship among mangers and employees. Add in
the mix of the often dreaded performance evaluation
and the manager-employee relationship becomes even
more complex. Though feelings on the effectiveness
of performance evaluations differ, it is nonetheless
an event many are eager to see conclude before the
evaluations even begin.
Its not that performance evaluations are inherently
bad, quite the contrary. The specific purpose guiding
their adoption in almost every company was intended
to provide an opportunity for management and the
employee to identify barriers to job success and
work towards removing them. However over the course
of time, mountains of paperwork, and a lack of understanding
about the performance evaluation process on from
both sides has caused performance evaluations to
evolve into a process to be feared by the employee,
and just another annoying task for management to
deal with.
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Unfortunately, given these circumstances, performance
evaluations do not often lead to increased productivity,
stronger management-employee relationships, or overall
job success. Instead they elicit feelings of resentment
from both parties, and can at times lead to heated
discussions if one side feels attacked or treated unfairly.
However, efforts can be made on behalf of both the
manager and the employee in order to have greater success
with performance evaluations. In particular, the employee
can have a sincere impact on the course of the evaluation
by avoiding the pitfalls of the process.
According to www.work911.com there are seven mistakes
employees do during a performance evaluation that lead
to less than desirable outcomes. First, employees should
stop focusing on the appraisal forms because they don't
matter. Instead, it is the practice of engaging with
your manager, receiving feedback, working towards greater
success that really matters, not the paper. Second,
employees often neglect to prepare beforehand. Specifically,
this can lead to being a reactive participant or passive
participant, neither of which helps you or the company.
Third, employees often go into performance evaluations
defensive. Rather, if employees feel that things are
being overlooked or management is overly critical,
the employee should deliver their message in a calm,
factual manner, explaining their position.
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Fourth, employees do not typically communicate with
their manager regarding their performance outside of
the evaluation process. Even if managers do not create
opportunities for issues to be discussed, it is important
that employees make and effort and do so. Fifth, employees
often fail to have their manager clarify. It is essential
that if something is unclear during the evaluation,
that the employee quickly receives clarification in
order to prevent any confusion in the future. Sixth,
employees usually allow the manager to conduct the
evaluation, permitting one-sidedness. On the other
hand, if employees took it as an opportunity to work
with their manager effectively the evaluation would
be more productive.
And finally, given the fact that the outcome of a
performance evaluation in the majority of companies
is closely tied to raises and bonuses, many employees
only see the value in the evaluation to the extent
that it is their ticket to an increase in income, or
in other cases a barrier. Though pay is an important
issue, it is essential for employees to refer back
to their successes over the year in order to share
this information with their manager during the evaluation.
Ultimately if employees approach performance evaluations
as an opportunity to identify their weaknesses, work
with management to develop strategies to overcome them,
come prepared with factual information about their
successes, do not allow their emotions to sabotage
them, and participate throughout the performance evaluation,
such behaviors would likely garner greater evaluation
results rather than sitting back and allowing fear
to impede success. |
