Fair Evaluations

Every year, most employees go through some sort of evaluation process.  For the employer, this involves going through the files to retrieve all the notes, memos, meeting notes, and other anecdotal information on which to base the evaluation.  Unfortunately, in the heat of the daily battles, most employers find it difficult to keep the files up-to-date with accurate information about what workers are doing.  Employees, on the other hand, are just as notorious of falling into the-boss-is-keeping-track mindset and, therefore, are not as vigilant as they should be at tracking their accomplishments.  In both scenarios, the evaluation usually winds up inaccurate.  The answer is a partnership between supervisor and subordinate.

First, I meet with subordinates, for whom I'm responsible to provide an evaluation, on a regular basis. This meeting is where we discuss the weeks and months ahead.  This is also the time where I delegate responsibilities for the near future.  During the week, my subordinate, tracks progress on the assigned projects and tasks on a form that I provide.  At the next scheduled meeting, the subordinate, brings the project/task tracking form, as well as a copy for me.  This form becomes the agenda for the "old business" part of our meetings.  It allows me to see what's going on with in-progress projects as well as talk to my subordinate to see if any obstacles or difficulties have appeared that I need to help with. It's also the time to take completed projects and do a quick debriefing and record the results.  My notes are put on the form to become part of the record. The second part of the meeting is the assignment of any new projects or tasks.  At the end of the meeting, we each file our copies of the project/task tracking form.  We begin the process again with a new form for the upcoming week.

The tracking form that I use is highly specialized for my roles in my organization.  Yours should be designed with your roles, goals, and assignments in mind, but should include at least:

• Project/task - Can be subdivided by roles, goals, assigned/self-initiated, etc.
• Due date
• Notes on progress and/or outcomes - To be updated during the week.
• Meeting notes to record details from supervisor/subordinate meetings

The form does not have to be too detailed, as this is simply supposed to be an agenda for discussion during the regular update meetings.

With this process, I'm able to:

• Stay up-to-date on each project's status.
• Do a weekly review with my subordinate so we are both operating off of the same priorities.
• Provide timely feedback to my subordinate on assigned projects while there is still time for revisions.
• Provide feedback on completed projects on a regular basis.  I believe that an evaluation should not be a surprise; an evaluation should be an affirmation of what both parties already know. 
• Accumulate a body of evidence on which I can create an accurate evaluation at the end of the evaluation period.  If the regular feedback has been truthful throughout the year, the subordinate doesn't come in to the evaluation meeting with an inflated idea of what their evaluation will be, which removes much of the stress of the meeting.  It also ensures that my evaluation of the employee is not undeservedly negative, as the employee has the same file of evidence upon which the evaluation is based.

Since my position makes me a subordinate as well as a supervisor, my evaluation process requires me to provide an Executive Summary to my supervisor that outlines my responsibilities, goals, and outcomes.  Challenges and success are discussed.  By tracking my assignments, projects, and outcomes, I'm able to create the Executive Summary with ease.  I don't struggle to remember what I did, as it is all written down with all details.  My form notes also include any feedback my supervisor provides so that my Executive Summary reflects what we've talked about in our regular meetings.  By my providing my supervisor with regular copies of my tracking forms, she is easily able to write her response.

Tracking one's own performance ensures appropriate evaluations and also allows us to track our progress toward our own goals that, hopefully, we set for ourselves each year.  In addition, supervisors who are provided update sheets are appreciative of the data that they provide.

Comments

[Charles Martin]

I really wish my previous employers used this method. The software company I worked at was probably the worst. The evaluation was usually put off until some crisis occurs in which your participation was considered lackluster... when that crisis happened, you were guaranteed your annual review would be within days and the entire evaluation was based on the most recent events, never anything that was done earlier in the year (especially when you were motivated to improve after the last scathing evaluation).

[Bert]

Charles--

Another management strategy that, in my opinion, is terrible, but still in use is the supervisor taking the notes of the negative things and dropping them in the file. They rarely grab the good things. In addition, there is no regular feedback sessions scattered throughout the year. As a result, when the evaluation conference comes up, all the negative things are dredged up. The employee, who has not been keeping track, is caught flat-footed and unable to provide evidence that good things happened during the year. The employer refuses to accept a verbal but-I-did-so-many-good-things argument without documentation, which the employee rarely has.

Here's a strategy for those of you who work with clients, customers, or the general public: When someone pays you a compliment for a job well done, thank them and say, "You know who else would love to hear that? My boss! How about dropping a note to him (or her) to let him/her know?" I encourage my employees to do this with their contacts. As the letters come in, I drop them in the file and bring them out during the evaluation.

I feel that it is my job to make sure that my employees are able to do a job that warrants a good eval. If they struggle with this, I first look at my management of that employee before looking at him/her.

[Charles]

We use a very similar approach with our team. Excel is extremely helpful with this as the "tracking form" . Another method that cen be a bit more complex but if used right very informative is Outlook Tasks. Assigning the task to the individual gives both sides an open line of comminicating and updating progress if FTF contact is not possible for lengths of time.
My Post on the subject

Stu

[Bert]

Thanks, Stu!

I'd love to do more tracking with technology, but, unfortunately, my profession still has many workers who are technophobic. For them, paper and pen seems to work the best. Part of the problem is that they are just now receiving the level of technology that they need. Therefore, many are not trained in the most current software. Training 100+ employees, many who think that working email is most tech-savvy thing there is, is time consuming. They are willing, however.

[Shoe-Girl]

We have trobules like these all the time at the office and have been plagued by high trunover rates because of it. I think I'm going to take some of your ideas back to my bosses and see if we can work something out. In the small shoe/boot/footwear retail industry, I've heard dozens of people complain. Maybe it's widespread throughout every industry. Thanks for the post!

[Stu]

Glad I can contribute. I actually will be posting an article about using Outlook tasks soon as I have found some people interested. I just want to get the verbage less "techie" for my readers. I'm still pretty new at writing these types of things out.

Stu
Stu's Techno Geek Page

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Great stuff and sounds really helpful. Thanks for sharing the information! Care to share a sanitized version of the form with us so we can adapt to our needs/organization?

[Bert]

Shoe-girl - Part of the problem is that management is sometimes hesitant because this requires much more time than just "winging" it. I have colleagues in the same position as me who simply write the eval and just tell the employee to sign. I've always felt that my employees give me the best they have to give -- I should do the same.

Stu - I'll be waiting to read it...I've read your blog too!

Phil - I'm currenly on vacation, so give me until about the middle next week and I'll post a form.

[Eric Sohn]

One field that I use on status reports that is also useful is "expected next actions". Not only what was done, but what is expected to be done.

You can also add a "expected, but not completed" column, too. These two fields help give a backwards-looking analytical framework as well as a predictive view for you and your supervisor.