– What makes an effective employee evaluation form? Truth is you can download a templatefrom the internet and call it a day,but that template won’t be the most effective form.Your form should help you manage performanceusing your own company goals and values.I’ve included a template evaluation formin the Exercise Files for this course,but my hope is that you’ll only use it as a guidewhile you watch this video and will make changes to itso that it suits your company specifically.There are a few things to keepin mind as you create your forms.
The first is that each job descriptionshould have it’s own matching evaluation form.In other words, job descriptionsand performance evaluation formsgo hand-in-hand like his and hers bathroom towels.Also remember that evaluation formsshould be clear and easy to use.Don’t make them too complicated or lengthy.Finally, remember that while performance evaluationsmay be conducted annually, your managersand supervisors should be giving ongoing feedback all year.In fact, the annual performance evaluationshould just be the formalized versionof a conversation that’s already taken placemany times over throughout the year,so the first step in creating a performance evaluation formis to understand the core competenciesa person in each position should be measured againstand describe those competencies on the evaluation form.
If you take a look at my example in the Exercise Files,you’ll find my Retail Clerk’s core compentenciesare excellent customer service, upselling products,financial accuracy in transactions,and keeping the store clean.A different evaluation form will be createdfor the Stock person, whose core competenciesmight be organization, efficiencyin moving inventory from point A to point B,and the ability to foresee inventory needs.The second part of your form measures employeeson how well they live your company values.
For example, I once did some HR consultingfor a retail store and some of the company’s values werea strong work ethic, teamwork,flexibility, and resourcefulness,so the evaluation forms I created included these skillsand all employees were measured against them.Both your core competencies and your company valuesshould include a short description of each item.The next step is to design the graphics scaleto correspond with the core competenciesand the company values.
The graphics scale is your rating system.You can see on the template I providedthat my scale is excellent, average,below average, and unsatisfactory.The idea is that any competency or valuegraded as unsatisfactory would need to beaccompanied by an action plan for improvement,while anything marked below averageis something the employee should be mindful of improving.An employee who receives an averagein all categories might be an okay performer,but an employee who receives excellentin most or all categories would deservesome type of acknowledgement or might stand out asup for a promotion when a spot opens up.
Also note that I purposely did not includea neutral or N/A category in my scale.If you evaluation forms are pairedwith your job descriptions, than you won’t needthat item in your graphics scale.Next, you will create a place for managersto highlight the employee’s strengths.I like to require managers to come up witha minimum of three strengths and to provide examplesof how those strengths show upin the employee contributions to the company.Then you’ll provide a section for the managerand employee to discuss opportunities for improvement.
Managers should always discuss goals,resources that will be providedto assist the employee, and the required timeline.Finally, you’ll provide a section for employeesto write in their comments and a placefor the manager and employee to sign.Once you’ve created your evaluation formsfor all of your positions, you areready to provide manager training.This training doesn’t need to be extensiveor time-consuming, but understandthat some managers are easy gradersand will give everyone good or great scores,while others are hard graders and willgive everyone good or poor scores.
The goal of your training is to eliminatethat personal bias or inconsistency in judgementand get everyone on the same page.On a final note, once you’ve createdthe performance evaluation form and processand trained your managers on how to use it,your role becomes that of a coach.Your job is to make the evaluationconversations comfortable for everyone.Rather than a time to dread a difficult conversationabout failures, make performance evaluationsa time to celebrate successes.
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This ensures that the report is useful for decision making as an employee would not fulfill what they are not competent in. It’s also critical to measure an employee performance on the basis of the organization core values such as work ethics which with competence should have a short description of each item. The criterion for evaluation needs to include a rating scale for both competencies and core values in order to determine the level of improvement needed. It’s good also to provide a section for manager’s evaluation of key strengths and discussion for the opportunity for improvements. In addition, once the scores have been established one of the key opportunities is a brief training such that each would understand the criterion of evaluation and the future expectations (Bell, et al., 2017).
