Employee performance evaluation plays a major role in inspiring your employees, improving the quality of their work, and keeping them motivated every day. There should be no doubt that employee performance evaluation is a critical aspect of any organization’s growth. It is not only the best channel to understand how your employees are performing, but also a compelling measure to get feedback about how your business is operating overall, whether your employees are working in a positive way towards achieving your goals, and what you can do to improve employee engagement. It also provides a foundation for determining wage increments and succession plans for employees and their development.
A comprehensive employee performance evaluation process often consists of different evaluation methods to help determine how an employee is performing and what the areas are where they may need help. Using multiple techniques can help you get a broader perspective of the areas where your staff needs to improve and the steps you can take to support the growth of your employees.
Peer review
Peer review is one of the strategies that many organizations and employee evaluation software have used to enhance the traditional evaluation process. The process of peer review consists of gathering anonymous feedback about an employee from colleagues, teammates, and peers on specific aspects of an individual employee’s performance.
It provides a unique opportunity to study the skills and capabilities of the employee and helps to identify an individual’s networking, leadership, occupational, and collaboration skills within an organization. Given the intricate nature of working relationships, this process provides a unique chance to identify each employee’s strengths and weaknesses, and use this valuable data to make decisions regarding succession planning, building teams, and job rotations.
Self evaluation
Self-evaluation is a vital activity to help make your appraisal process more efficient. When done properly, it can provide several key inputs about the organization. This evaluation method provides a chance for employees to play an active role in their evaluation process. Thus, rather than simply being the receiver of the management’s feedback, the employees are given a voice.
This provides a direct link between their jobs and the evaluation process and fosters better communication between staff and management. With active participation, employees can experience better engagement with the overall review process, giving managers a much better understanding of the individual’s performance as well as their perception of their performance. When self-evaluation is developed as an integral part of the review process, it encourages employees to regularly evaluate themselves throughout the year leading to a maximum achievement of the company’s goals.
Quantitative evaluation
Quantitative evaluation is based upon statistics and uses various standards to track productivity. The process begins with the formulation of company standards against which employee data can be measured. It is critical to layout standards in very clear and precise terms without ambiguity, leaving no chance for misinterpretation.
Some of the quantitative standards against which the employee’s performance can be compared are cost standards, time standards, income standards, ROI, productivity, and market share standards. This data can be used to evaluate a company’s overall goals and also provide a foundation for awarding promotions or raises. Additionally, you can also use the data to justify the termination of any staff member for poor work performance.
Qualitative evaluation
Qualitative evaluation goes hand-in-hand with quantitative evaluation. While the quantitative evaluation model is statistical, or figures-based, it does not provide a full picture of the employee’s performance.
Enter the qualitative evaluation.
A qualitative evaluation focuses on the specific performance areas that can be visually observed, but not measured in numbers like teamwork, communication skills, and absenteeism. The qualitative evaluation is prepared by observing the employee during the workday and gathering descriptive, long-form informational comments on their work behavior. It must include comments on their daily obstacles and challenges, their daily work habits, and job successes
Together, the qualitative and quantitative evaluation types will provide an organization with a complete picture of the employee’s “on the job” performance.
360-degree feedback
The 360-degree feedback appraisal method provides a chance for all employees to submit their views and contribute towards the overall business goal. Under this system, an employee is rated by his/her subordinates, superiors, peers, and even clients and customers. Because an employee is evaluated from every side it is called ‘360-degree feedback‘.
Under this method, a questionnaire is prepared which contains aspects such as teamwork, leadership qualities, goal orientation, motivation level, adaptability, etc. and the relevant person is asked to fill out this questionnaire – albeit anonymously. The feedback helps employees to gain insight on how other employees perceive their work and motivates them to work harder and with more dedication to realize the company’s objectives.
Competency on a scale
This is one of the most commonly used employee performance evaluation techniques. Under this method, the individual’s performance in various areas of job duties is graded on a scale. A wide range of criteria, including productivity, customer service, teamwork, quality of work, concern for safety, etc. are evaluated. This method can be accomplished with letters or numbers and it usually consists of a range that moves from unsatisfactory to outstanding. This method also allows employers to simultaneously evaluate several employees.
Considering the importance of Employee performance evaluation, it has become necessary to have an efficient Employee evaluation software in place to provide a competitive edge in an ever-changing and fast paced business environment. With AssessTEAM, you can control how employees are to be evaluated based on the job profile and also as per the needs of your organization.
Continuous feedback
Continuous feedback, in essence, is a method of ongoing feedback. It is designed to take the place of the annual performance review. It is also essential to note that continuous feedback is not only ongoing feedback, but it is also an evaluation methodology that is practical and drives the process towards actionable steps and development objectives. It is not a form-filling exercise that focuses on retrospective ratings, but instead is the day to day engagement between managers and their subordinates. As a matter of fact, a recent study by Gallup revealed that every employee appreciates some form of feedback from their team leaders or managers.
There are many advantages to continuous feedback; however, the most important benefit is that it allows team leaders or managers to intervene in a more timely manner when an employee is underperforming. This prevents a negative situation from spiraling out of control. A simple email, text, call or a quick drop by an employee’s workstation can make all the difference. Daily conversations don’t have to be long – just a few minutes are enough for an informal, but continuous communication. Doing so will pivot a negative situation into a positive outcome that drives profitable growth and development for the organization as a whole.
Critical incident method of performance evaluation
The critical incident feedback is a methodology that is designed as an identification and intervention method ONLY where the employee completed a task or project really well, or the employee failed miserably. It is important to note that it is a technique based on the event’s description. It relies on tools like continuous feedback, qualitative evaluation, and real-time feedback. These incidents must be recorded as they occur and are not left to be dealt with retrospectively.
It is worth repeating that this methodology is designed to intervene in a critical scenario where immediate intervention is required to solve a potentially disastrous situation for the company. The reverse is also true for a high-performing employee.
Profitability evaluation
Evaluating its profitability is one of the most challenging aspects for any sized business. The business’s success is defined by its ability to earn a profit continually. Therefore, at-risk projects must be discovered and highlighted to prevent the company’s profitable activities from becoming a loss-making exercise.
Evaluating the profitability of employees is often a huge challenge with the months of number-crunching involved. Software systems like AssessTEAM offer this in a simpler package. The profitability rating is determined by calculating the total time spent multiplied by the employee’s hourly payment rate versus the allocated budget for the project. If the cost of the time spent on the project is higher than the budget, then the project is making a loss, and interventions must be put into place immediately to turn the situation around.
Productivity evaluation
Project profitability can be greatly affected when teams or employees spend too much time on any given project. Understanding where time is spent leads to clearer and easier managing project goals. By analyzing the project profitability compared to employee evaluation metrics, you gain powerful insights into why projects do not result in anticipated profit margins. The AssessTEAM software system delivers in-depth reports on how employees perform compared to project performance. The resulting reports can reveal inadequacies that can be corrected to improve the overall bottom line.
Customer satisfaction evaluation
Customers and clients are the lifelines of every business and organization, regardless of the industry. The fact is, satisfied customers are repeat customers, and when great customer service is lacking the business will suffer.
Using the AssessTEAM Customer Service objectives, you can be assured that your customer service team always meets its core efficiencies. Evaluating employee customer service performance using these objectives is critical to organizational success. Measuring and tracking these objectives over time will offer great insight into how the customer service team is performing, what its successes are, and where improvements are needed. Consistent customer satisfaction plays a major role in driving sales and driving customer conversions.
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