7 Secrets to Making Employee Evaluation Forms Work for You
Employee evaluation forms are an important part of many companies’ annual review process, but that doesn’t mean you have to fill yours out the same way everyone else does. These 7 tips will help you customize your employee evaluation forms to make sure they get you the results you need from both employees and their managers. Check them out!
1) The Importance of Clearly Defined Job Descriptions
If you don’t have a clear definition of what each position in your company is supposed to do, it can be hard to know when or how employees are succeeding. The obvious answer is that well-defined job descriptions keep everyone on the same page, but that’s not all. Here are some other benefits:
1) It provides a framework for developing measurable goals and milestones for individual performance as well as organizational goals
2) It helps define what steps are required from each employee and where responsibility lies within the chain of command
3) Employees can refer back to job descriptions if they are unsure about expectations or requirements in their work roles. This builds morale because workers feel more secure knowing their jobs and responsibilities.
2) Value Employees’ Input
As a business owner, it is important that you never underestimate the value of your employees and always listen to what they have to say. Take their opinions seriously and use them as valuable tools in making decisions on how the company should run. Not only will this help build a sense of teamwork and collaboration among all employees, but it will also save you time by ensuring that things are being done according to the way your team wants them done. Investing time in understanding what motivates each employee not only benefits the individual but also provides new insight into improving production, retention rates, customer service skills and more.
3) Evaluate Regularly
Evaluating employees often is a stressful experience. Not only do you have to think about the performance of your workers but also what will happen when they leave. Evaluate their work and development regularly and give them a chance to grow in their position. When it comes time for reviews, use an evaluation form that can keep track of many things at once so you don’t have to sit down with each worker and go over every single detail. Free templates are available online, just search employee evaluation forms in Google and get started!
1) Fill out the employee’s name _________________________
2) Think about how much of their work was good or bad
3) What would you like them to do more or less of?
4) How did they perform compared to other people?
5) If there were any problems, what were they?
6) Would you recommend them for another job or promotion?
7) At the bottom of the sheet, there is space for comments.
4) Set Clear Expectations
If you want your employee evaluation forms to work, make sure they are a two-way street. This means that you should use the same criteria when evaluating them as they do when evaluating you. Make it as easy as possible on yourself and your employees by providing clear examples of what good and bad performance looks like in a particular area of the business. Keep feedback both positive and negative so that everyone is clear on what their strengths and weaknesses are.
If you want people to be honest with how they feel about something, ask open-ended questions that start with words like What, How, or Why. It’s worth spending time figuring out where people have problems because then you can brainstorm solutions with them together.
5) Provide Training Opportunities
It can be difficult to know what you should be looking for when evaluating your employees. Here are 7 things that you should keep in mind: • What do they excel at? • What areas do they need work on? • Do they have room for improvement? • Can their work get better over time or will it stagnate? When providing feedback, be sure not to use harsh language. Using words like desperate or catastrophic can come across as offensive. A better way to phrase this is by saying the employee did not meet expectations, but there is potential for improvement. Remember, people want recognition and don’t always understand why a certain choice was made.
6) Never Bait and Switch
As a business owner, you want to know what your employees are doing at all times. In order to do that, it’s important to review their work often, not just when the work is completed. Here are 7 secrets to making employee evaluation forms work for you:
1) Make Sure Your Employees Understand the Purpose of Evaluation Forms
Employees who understand what they’re being evaluated on will take your feedback into consideration as they do their job.
2) Stay Neutral with Respectful Comments
This may be difficult in some cases, but sometimes offering feedback with respect rather than criticism goes a long way.
7) Provide Feedback Both Positive and Negative
Forms can be incredibly useful and important in your business, but it’s crucial that you customize them to make them as effective as possible. There are a number of elements that need to be considered when designing an evaluation form, including what is being evaluated, the timing and frequency of evaluations, who is involved in the evaluation process and if there are any rewards or consequences linked with evaluations.
First off, decide on what will be evaluated – skills, task performance or more subjective qualities such as interpersonal skills. If you’re trying to evaluate personality traits like creativity or interpersonal skills it might not make sense use a scale of 1-5 since these skills are not all created equal. Next think about how often will employees be evaluated.
