Employee Performance Evaluation

In order to be effective at their jobs, employees must know that they are meeting the expectations of management. Without measureable goals and timely feedback, employees feel their contributions are not valued and effectiveness suffers. Furthermore, without results-oriented management, the value of employee performance evaluations is diminished in regard to creating high-achieving teams.

Set Up Your Team Members for Success

Managers must lay a proper foundation regarding the duties and expectations for each of their team members:

• Review each employee’s specific duties with the employee. Mutually agree on clarifications.
• Cover the specific skills and knowledge required for them to succeed. Define what and when additional training is required.
• Plan together the acquisition of any tools, software or intracompany relationships the employee requires. Set firm deadlines for attaining these.
• Track an employee’s progress against their job duties and specific tasks. Ensure that all goals are measureable and reward concrete progress immediately.

When setting goals, employee buy-in is critical. This is most effective when team members identify development and performance goals themselves before a discussion with their manager.

Measuring Performance

If an employee’s duties and performance goals are clearly stated, then measuring progress is easy to accomplish. Unclear, vague or subjective goals impede the effectiveness of the entire team and make performance evaluation more difficult. To be effective, each goal must follow certain guidelines:

• Goals must have specific results to be delivered at a specific time.
• Each result must be measurable by criteria such as quantity, quality or function.
• Do not set goals that are unachievable, but ensure they are ambitious.

With such goals, employees can focus on their tasks. Managers can avoid tendencies to judge subjectively, be lenient or miss opportunities to reward effective team members in employee performance evaluations.

Software for Measuring Employee Performance

Managers can improve their objectivity toward employee performance decidedly by utilizing software specifically designed for this function. Momentum is a software package that assists both managers and employees in setting and tracking team member goals and contributions. All areas necessary for improving team effectiveness are included:

• Momentum reduces confusion as to an individual’s responsibilities and tasks.
• Managers set the goals. Team members define the tasks to achieve those goals.
• Progress is transparent to all team members via Momentum’s goal tracking facility.
• Project management functions are built-in.
• Activity streams monitor progress in real-time.
• Momentum’s rich reporting functions make goal and activity analysis a snap. The reports form an objective basis for employee performance evaluations.

The Measure of Success

Each employee and manager has only one ultimate goal to accomplish, which is contributing to the overall success of the organization. The most powerful technique to achieve this is for individual contributors to focus on results rather than activities. Momentum does just that by assisting managers and their team to create measurable achievements aligned with the larger goals of the group and company.

Try Momentum for free right now to see how it can supercharge your team’s performance.

Bernhard S