Twelve key points your company wants from a employee performance evaluations system

Role change with employee performance evaluations in catalytic conversions

In the new employee performance evaluations, the boss going from evaluator to a coach, the employee going from passive to active and the senior management and HR going from cat herders to process leaders

1. Clearly define limits and prioritize desired outcomes in employee performance evaluations.
   Dr. Peter Scholtes, a Deming disciple, figured out that too many employee performance evaluations systems are trying to do too much. They need to be unbundled. Scholtes basically said, “Quit trying to do everything with one tool.” It ends up not being very good at any of those. Focus on a sub-set of those things and actually like feeding the salary system’s succession planning. You can end up with two or three good tools instead of one pretty mediocre tool.
2. Focus on the future in employee performance evaluations.
   If number one on the list that you ought to be looking for is behavior change, be very conscious of the notion that behavior change cannot occur in the past.
3. Coaching and the whole paradigm of coaching are future-oriented.
   Employee Performance evaluations now are focused on the past.. The primary focus ought to be in the future because that’s where the action is. That’s where the money is. That’s where you ought to be going.
4. Redefine role of participants.
   Managers and supervisors needs to go from a critic to a coach. Employee needs to change from an evaluation subject to an empowered career craftsman.
5. Break down the direct link between employee performance evaluations and salary administration.
   You can’t go directly from last year’s pay to this year’s performance. Quit treating them like you’re Santa Claus You’re going to have to tell where money really comes from-the budget- and they can handle it.
6. Give them things to improve
   If you’re going to influence their behavior, you need to limit and prioritize the number of things you’d like them to work on to improve. If you give them too many things, they will do the best they can and they will not be able to focus. Focus means you have a finite number of things. You got to say things positively when you ask for improvement instead of telling somebody they’re lousy with something. Tell them you’ve got something you’d like them to work, learn to improve.
7. The employee performance evaluations are for the employee not about the employee for HR and the file.

8. Say to employees what you say about them behind the back
   Now, you got to be diplomatic in your honesty but if you’re honest and direct with people even if it doesn’t work out and they have to leave – again, they may not send you a Christmas card but they may – and they’re probably not going to go to a lawyer either.
9. You need to know what your employees’ want and value.
   Steven Covey’s aphorism that seek to first to understand and then to be understood. That’s one of the famous seven habits. Slow down, backup and find out where some of this is coming from first and then when you talk to them, you’re going to have an opportunity to influence more. Think of it as institutionalizing listening. And there’s one thing to tell people to listen, it’s another thing to set up the kind of situation where the system makes it such that they have to and it’s hard not to, okay? So, know what your employees want and value and do that by actively listening.
10. Whatever you tell somebody at the layer below you ought to be reviewed at least the layer above you?
    It lends gravity and importance of the message being communicated and it allows that senior management to inspect the quality of the process You also usually you work little harder on something your boss is going to review. It’s a quality control thing.
11. Train each group of employees on the role of process.
    Everybody kind of looks real simple forms and they go “Less is easier” If they don’t understand why they’re not going to get “how” change. So if you’re going to do a system kind of like I’m explaining here, you got to get everybody trained including the people being coached – the people on the receiving end because they don’t know why you’re doing it and they don’t know how to participate, it’s not going to work very well and a paradigm change kind of system like I’m talking about here. Just because a tool looks simple doesn’t mean it’s easy to use.
12. There needs to some kind of follow-up.
    If you tell somebody you got to champion this stuff, you got to follow-up on this stuff, you got to do it all year long, You got to make follow-up easy and quick or literally it won’t get done. Make it really, really easy, relatively painless and very quick, okay. Then people might follow-up.

Okay. So those are twelve things to do instead or twelve key components of an effective system. Now, I’m going to give you a chance here to take a deep breath, get a drink of water and also if you’ve got a neighbor there that you are doing this with, talk to them, you know, what’s the most different about this approach?

Edited remarks from the Rapid Learning Institute webinar “No More Performance Reviews! – A Revolutionary Approach to Performance Feedback” by Gary Markle