Employee Evaluations: Why Are They So Critical?
Employee evaluations are a cornerstone of any strategy for developing, maintaining, and growing a high performance workforce. They are a critically important opportunity to stop and “take stock” of the employer-employee relationship by reviewing and discussing a range of performance topics including:
- Reviewing goals and work priorities that were established for the evaluation period - assessing the degree to which the individual achieved what they set out to accomplish
- Standards of performance that are expected - the behaviors, skills, competencies including any special certification that may be required
- Noting success that an employee has enjoyed including noteworthy accomplishments
- Areas requiring productivity improvement including competency gaps or behavioral problems
- Modifying or setting new goals and establishing an action plan including opportunities for growth and advancement
- Career and development planning to achieve new goals and career aspirations
- How the individual contributes directly to the organization’s mission and priorities
Employee evaluations provide critical insight
Most employees welcome the opportunity to sit “one-on-one” with their manager or supervisor and get useful feedback that will help them with their career development. In addition, employee evaluations are an opportunity for managers to:
- Evaluate the effectiveness and validity of a wide range of human resource efforts including hiring practices and training efficacy
- Decide who to promote, who to reward, who to put on watch (or lay off), and to identify up-and-coming “stars” or top performers
- Capture key workforce and performance data that can be used for executive decision making related to workforce alignment, succession planning, talent management and other employee performance management strategies
Preparing employee performance evaluations
Employee evaluation forms are the key document for capturing performance review information and communicating feedback and expectations in a consistent and standardized way. Typically the employee evaluation form is completed by a supervisor or manager and is presented to the employee for discussion, and a copy of the evaluation is kept in the employee’s personnel file.
A number of factors and considerations can influence the type of employee evaluation forms required and the overall appraisal process that is required:
- The type of employee being evaluated - manager, supervisor, scientist, sales, clerical, skilled, semi skilled, etc.
- Who is carrying out the evaluation - immediate supervisor, manager, self-assessment, personnel manager, etc.
- How often evaluations are conducted - once a year, bi-annually, quarterly, or even more frequently
- The method of evaluation being used - rating scales, comparisons with objectives, critical incidents, multi-rater assessments, etc.
- The type of performance criteria or competencies being measured
- How compensation decisions are linked to performance evaluations
Even the most simple appraisal process for a small organization involves the creation of appropriate evaluation forms, distributing and assessing results, filing employee evaluation forms, and notifying managers and employees about tasks to keep the appraisal process running smoothly and on time. Accomplishing all this using traditional paper-based methods can be a challenging, time-consuming, and expensive process. For these reasons organizations of all sizes and industry sectors have moved to web-based performance evaluation methods.
Web-based evaluation systems simplify
Halogen eAppraisal™ is a next generation web-based software solution that dramatically simplifies and streamlines the entire performance appraisal process. Key reasons Halogen eAppraisal has become the solution of choice for so many organizations include the following:
- Intuitive and easy to use interface - with point and click simplicity HR Administrators can create any number of evaluation forms and run various appraisal processes. Managers can complete more meaningful evaluations, view dashboards and detailed reports. And every employee can easily track their goals, development plans and other performance items year round.
- Powerful, innovative, industry leading tools - get the tools you need to develop the right forms, customize the appraisal process to meet your organization’s specific needs, easily create more detailed employee evaluations that are meaningful and fair, and generate eye-opening real-time management reports that facilitate executive decision-making.
- Affordable - our sophisticated web-based solutions are profoundly simple to implement, use and administer while providing an affordable solution for automating the most complex performance appraisal processes for organizations of all sizes and in all industry sectors.
- Fast time to value - most organizations are up and running with a superior performance management system in days.
- Flexible - our tools are easily configured to suit your unique requirements without the need for IT or vendor involvement. Create and change workflow, evaluation forms, and more with the click of a mouse.
See for yourself
Halogen eAppraisal™ is a powerful, proven solution for quickly creating comprehensive, high-value employee evaluations and cultivating a high performance workforce that is completely aligned with your organization’s goals and priorities.
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