How is Your Company Performance Trending? It’s All in the Employee Factor

The Kenexa High Performance Institute (KHPI) released their WorkTrends Report for 2011 – 2012. Engagement Levels in Global Decline: Organizations Losing Competitive Advantage. While the focus of this report demonstrates survey trends from 31,000 workers in 28 countries, it shares practical steps for leaders to address the unmet needs of employees today.

Three practical steps to improve employee engagement levels are:

1. Work/Life Balance
2. A Mirror Test for Leadership
3. Training Opportunities for Employees

Each organization must take the time to decide what works best in your environment. All brainstorming begins with spending time with your employees and going beyond a survey to ongoing, meaningful communication. Helping employees to connect the dots between their goals and the company goals are critical. Relevant feedback for employees regarding their overall performance, skills and career objectives goes a long way to improve the connections to employee satisfaction.

Are you utilizing your current employee performance management system to capture multiple interactions with your employees? Do your employees view the Employee Performance Management process as valuable to increase their ability to be successful in your organization?

Several research studies show a direct correlation between employee engagement and bottom line company profitability. Utilizing employee performance evaluation software can increase your effectiveness to manage real time, frequent feedback that is captured in a solution to connect results to goal attainment. Your employees deserve the best communication culture to increase their engagement levels.

Your competitive advantage will make you a survivor. Fostering a highly engaged workforce will improve your financial and company performance. Are you ready to make the commitment to make it happen?

About BullseyeEvaluation: Bullseye Evaluation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company process. At Bullseye performance management systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization. Visit our website at http://www.bepms.com and let us show you how to focus on the employee and not just the form.

The Ideal Employee Evaluation from My Manager

I have read all the helpful hints and understand how to do my part for a successful employee evaluation session.  Be prepared, Know my goals, Have specific examples.  Seems easy enough.  We all say we want feedback, but we still get a knot in our stomachs when it is time to sit across the table.

To my surprise, the meeting with my manager was not painful.  As a matter of fact, it was a very thorough discussion and I left knowing more about how I am viewed in the company.  What made that discussion so different?  The review in my mind recalled the following observations:

1)  Be Here Now

I’m not sure who coined that phrase, but my manager blocked out all distractions and made sure he was not interrupted.  Our discussion was the only focus for that hour.  He made the choice to value the feedback appointment with  me.

2)   The Form, The Discussion, The Commitment

I completed my self appraisal and he read it.  He highlighted comments I made to review with me.  He presented his review and we discussed the differences in our opinions and gained greater understanding of each other’s perceptions.  I discovered that a couple of risks I took were for the right reasons, but didn’t yield the right results.  We talked about a new approach to gain some consensus around my suggestions.  I thought I would get in trouble for that one.  It turned out to be a great learning situation.  Finally, the commitment.  He shared his commitment to help me learn, grown and challenged me to work towards an even higher level of performance.  My weaknesses, development areas, opportunities, they were all addressed with openness and gave me a sense of direction.  There were even so kudos for some difficult projects I completed.

3)   My Ratings Made Sense

Hard work doesn’t make a performance rating, right results do.  My manager helped me see that improving the way I approach my tasks will help me to gain better results.  The ratings were not a surprise due to the ongoing communication and our company performance management system that captures the details of my measureable results.

4)   Goals and Training

The career goals I have identified with my manager have purpose.  I understand how they fit in the company’s overall goals.  There are many courses our company offers that I haven’t taken advantage of since I have been employed.  Time to quit putting off the online courses I know I need.

5)   Genuine Concern for My Success

We had a transparent conversation, not just about my performance, but some of my manager’s career goals.  I can see how my ability to step up and accomplish more will allow my manager to delegate to me.  There was a sense that he was genuinely interested in my success. 

Overall, the meeting was something I really appreciated.  Sure we had some tense moments, but when it was all said and done, I am going to be a better employee because of it.  Performance appraisal conversations done the right way can make all the difference in world between reading job boards and focusing on career development tasks.

It’s not all a walk in the park, but when two professionals approach the performance discussion with respect and openness, great things can happen. 

Alright managers, how to you stack up?  Can you step back and make a few changes to your approach to your employee coaching sessions?  It’s all a matter of choice.

About Bullseye Evaluation: Looking for a system to make Performance Management a strategic advantage? Bullseye Evaluation offers a web based solution to help shift the culture of expectations for your company process. At Bullseye Performance Management Systems, we believe HR Professionals are operational and strategic partners when managing an organization.

Pat Bell is an HR Advisor with Bullseye Evaluations. BullseyeEvaluation offers Performance Appraisal Software & Performance Appraisal System

Make Performance Appraisal Effective

Performance appraisal software offers a solution of employee review process problems that is efficient and effective. It saves HR Management’s time significantly over manually maintained records. Managers can more easily communicate business strategies, plans and produce measurable targets for their employees that will support specific and overall company objectives. Give your management the tools of individual performance measurement so they can identify and cultivate top performers for further development and establish a pay for performance compensation plan.

Pay for Performance System

Create a pay-for-performance system for retaining your valuable employees. This practice leads to an increase in corporate spending due to the recruiting and training costs associated with new hires. A high turnover rate of employees can be traced to disgruntled employees leaving due to what they feel are unfair salary practices. Alternatively, when employees perceive that the system provides fair compensation and rewards, employee engagement and retention improves.

Effective performance reviews let you establish a fair pay-for-performance system by a reward system with individual and team performance. It allows you to keep your high performing employees as a vital part of your organization.

Deploy Resources & Talent Appropriately

By using performance appraisal software you can make sure that everybody keeps their projects on track based goals that are associated with company goals. Keep an eye on the completion or non-completion of these recognized goals. Do not waste valuable human assets following goals not aligned with the company goals and strategy.

More than Performance Reviews

Developing internal talent can be a significant source of savings considering that external recruitment and training can be twice as expensive as identifying internal successors. How can managers analyze their employees' talent sets to estimate readiness for promotion and find potential successors?

The right performance appraisal software is more than a database for performance reviews. The information that is gathered can be easily analyzed and used to make informed business decisions regarding promotions, rewards, and succession planning for internal candidates while supporting difficult decisions when layoffs loom during challenging economic times. It is also beneficial in establishing training programs to assist employees who are found with gaps in required skills.

Similar Goal Practices

Similar job descriptions and goals can share best practices among employees. This practice is necessary to improve employee performance with expert employees. When an employee has the ability to work efficiently and is considered an "expert", less experienced employees can be trained to follow those best practices and be successful.

 

Feedback and Coaching Employee

Managers should check in with their employees on a regular basis to give feedback or coaching as necessary. They should be made aware of any problem that may keep their employees from accomplishing their goals. If there are problems or issues, the manager and employee can create a plan to overcome them. Feedback and coaching creates a separate feedback loop within the larger loop which should take place more often than an annual review, allowing for changes as necessary.

No matter whether you have 10 employees or 10,000, get Bullseye Evaluation Performance Appraisal Software and put your employees on track to increase their productivity. With increased visibility of company goals, employees will understand what is important to the company's bottom line and direct their efforts to be focused on what is necessary to make your company successful.

Bullseye Evaluation presents: Key Performance Indicators (KPI Dashboard) and Employee Performance Appraisal Software, choose anyone as per your business requirements.

Buying Tips & Guidelines for Performance Appraisal Software

With performance appraisal software you can make evaluations easily utilize you and your employee’s time more productively. Before you buy any product it is wise to compare features and prices. However, you must know what your actual needs are when comparing performance appraisal software to get the right product. Simply buying the system with lots of bells and whistles, or one that requires a lot of forms or inputs don’t necessarily give you the best solution.

 Keep in mind key goals for your business that you should see benefits in:

• Improving the current level of employee performance across your organization.
• Identifying the top performing employees across the organization that are key to corporate succession, promotion and advancement.
• Identifying the divisions/departments/groups-and specific employees- that are underperforming or average.
• Improving your historical employee retention rate and understanding if your employees consider your organization a great place to work.

 

Before You Buy Evaluation Software:

First you have to decide whether you need web-based or customizable employee evaluation system.

Web-based Software as a Service:
Web-based software (SaaS) makes the performance appraisal accessible from anywhere by Internet. All information is stored on a secure web SQL Server, Oracle Server, or Access Server database.
Custom Solution Software:
Custom software allows you to configure the employee evaluation process per your business requirements and specific needs.

The evaluation process can be difficult sometimes. Some employees may react defensively. Sometimes employees do not understand about the benefits of a positive appraisal. If your workers feel that there is unevenness in coming down hard on some while making it easy on others there will be disappointment and dissatisfaction. You can address these problems with the below guidelines:

Give Specific Instruction

Set and properly explain goals & standards for your employees and what they will have to do to achieve them. Never say "improve quality" & "work harder". Rather say exactly what you want from them like, "don’t make more than two mistakes in data entry a day" or "increase sales 10% over last month’s sales". Similarly, when you evaluate a worker, give specific instances of what the employee did to achieve the goal.

 

Make Deadlines

Set timelines to see improvement in employee performance. And make sure that the timeline is sufficient for that purpose. Don’t think that short and unachievable deadlines pressure employees to work harder. It frustrates them.

Set Realistic Goals

If you set unrealistic or impossible standards & goals, disappointment and resentment will result. Your Goals should take into account the realities of your workplace as well as an element of challenge beyond the easy reach.

 

Ignore Personality Evaluation

Just focus on the job, not on the employee’s personality. For example, don't say the employee is "emotional and angry". Focus on the workplace conduct that is the problem. You can say the employee "has been disobedient to the supervisor twice in the previous months. This behavior must stop."

Handle Honestly

If you won’t tell an employee the truth about his performance problems, the worker won't know what he or she needs to improve. Bad news is uncomfortable for everyone but everyone deserves to know where they stand and how to move forward!

Maintain Employee Evaluation Records and Data

Manage and store your evaluation data so that anyone reading it would be able to understand clearly what has happened. Remember that an evaluation might become evidence in a lawsuit. If it does, you will want the judge to see what you rated the employee.

Employees Feedback

The evaluation process should also tell you about your employees’ concerns as well as needs to be improving in areas. You should take their feedback about concerns and try to address them. You'll gain valuable information when you ask employees what they enjoy about their jobs and working with the company. Your employees will feel like real participants in the process. You might even get some insights that could improve the evaluation.

About BullsEyeEvaluation: BullsEyeEvaluation offers Web based Employee Evaluation and Talent Management Software that enable organizations to effectively evaluate their Employees Performance. Learn more at http://www.bullseyeevaluation.com/.