Appraisals—For Fun and Profit?

Goals: The Critical First Step

Take the time to set meaningful goals for each employee. Without goals and standards, performance appraisals become very objective. If there is nothing to measure performance against, how do you rate it?

• Write specific and measurable goals.
• Clarify the link between the measurement criteria and the reward system.
• Let your performance appraisal flow from an evaluation of performance against goals.
• Discuss job performance—not personality. Say, “You missed the deadline,” rather than “You’re lazy” or “You don’t care.”
• Avoid comments that could suggest a discriminatory attitude, for example:

—”You women (men) are all alike.”
—”You Xs are always …”

Here is an approach to the performance appraisal meeting that many managers have found to be effective. This assumes you have established goals and have measured the employee’s degree of success in meeting them.

Written Assessment by Both

Have both the and assessment of the employee’s progress against the previously established goals. Exchange these reports several days before the appraisal meeting. This allows emotional reactions to subside and lets both parties reflect on their initial assessments.

Positive Agreement Discussion

At the meeting, discuss your performance assessments using the order suggested below. This helps set up an atmosphere of sharing that makes the discussion of poor performance easier to initiate.

1. Discuss Positive Agreement Areas. First, discuss areas of performance or specific goals for which you and the employee agree on the level of performance and agree that the performance was good.

2. Discuss Negative Agreement Areas. Next, discuss areas of performance or specific goals for which you and the employee agree on the level of performance and agree that the performance was not good.

3. Discuss Disagreement Areas. Finally, discuss areas in which you disagree about performance. During this discussion, remember to focus on observed behaviors, figures, and facts, not on personalities.

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4. Seek Agreement. Try to reach agreement on the performance in these areas in which you disagreed, but if you can’t reach agreement, clearly document your views for the employee.

5. Future Goals. Next, work on goals for the future. Answer any questions about the employee’s future, organization prospects, or whatever the employee wants to know about.

Just Do It

The most important thing about appraisals is to do them. The second most important thing is to do them honestly. “Grade inflation” will create problems in morale, productivity, and, someday, in court.

How can you make sure your managers and supervisors are doing appraisals effectively? And for that matter, how can you be sure they are doing all their HR-related tasks effectively? There’s only one way. Systematic, regular audits.

Audits are the only way to make sure that employees in every corner of your facility are operating within policy guidelines. If you’re not auditing, someone’s violating a policy right now.

The rub is that for most HR managers, it’s hard to get started auditing—where do you begin?

BLR’s editors recommend a unique product called HR Audit Checklists. Why are checklists so great? Because they’re completely impersonal, forcing you to jump through all the necessary hoops one by one. They also ensure consistency in how operations are conducted. That’s vital in HR, where it’s all too easy to land in court if you discriminate in how you treat one employee over another.

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HR Audit Checklists compels thoroughness. For example, it contains checklists both on Preventing Sexual Harassment and on Handling Sexual Harassment Complaints. You’d likely never think of all the possible trouble areas without a checklist; but with it, just scan down the list, and instantly see where you might get tripped up.

In fact, housed in the HR Audit Checklists binder are dozens of extensive lists, organized into reproducible packets, for easy distribution to line managers and supervisors. There’s a separate packet for each of the following areas:

• Staffing and training (incorporating Equal Employment Opportunity in recruiting and hiring, including immigration issues)
• HR administration (including communications, handbook content, and recordkeeping)
• Health and safety (including OSHA responsibilities)
• Benefits and leave (including health cost containment, COBRA, FMLA, workers’ compensation, and several areas of leave)
• Compensation (payroll and the Fair Labor Standards Act)
• Performance and termination (appraisals, discipline, and termination)

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