December 29, 2015
Once the employer has made a correct hiring decision, the goal is to develop and retain a productive and happy employee. Utilizing an effective evaluation system, and making promotion decisions based upon implementation and effectuation of the system, can help attain
this goal.
A. Developing Your People
1. Three Essentials to Performance Management
a. Establish GOALS for each employee.
b. OBSERVE each employee's behavior.
c. Give each employee regular FEEDBACK.
2. Establishing Employee Goals
a. It is your job to teach your employees how to do their job in an optimal manner. You must help your employees establish and work towards goals that are SMART.
(1) Specific
(2) Measurable
(3) Actionable
(4) Realistic
(5) Timely
b. Which of the following goals are SMART?
(1) Improve customer service–not smart.
(2) Train Joan to use the new software system in the billing department in the next 30 days–smart.
(3) Get promoted–not smart.
(4) Retrain Sara on drug distribution protocol in next two weeks–smart.
(5) Smile more–not smart.
c. Why involve employees in establishing goals?
(1) Employees are more likely to follow through if they consider themselves part of the decision-making process. Employee involvement has tremendous power.
(2) Employees often want different goals for themselves than those you want for them. As supervisor, you are to direct their work performance and future.
(3) Associates may have input to be able to develop new goals that you do not know about.
3. Observe Employee Behavior
a. Personally observe the associate.
(1) Ask the associate.
(2) Ask other associates and managers.
(3) Ask the employee to demonstrate their proficiency in a particular task.
4. Giving Feedback To Your Employees
a. Feedback is the key to raising the level of performance of your employees.
(1) Reinforces or modifies employee behavior.
(2) Lets employees know if they are performing up to your expectations.
(3) Prevents big surprises during formal performance evaluations.
(4) Determines what training needs your department has.
(5) Maintains a record of past performance.
(6) Lets employees know you care about them.
b. Two Types of Feedback
(1) Positive feedback includes:
(a) Constructive feedback–which corrects and/or improves employee performance.
(b) Recognition feedback–which praises an employee for good performance.
(2) Negative feedback includes verbal abuse, yelling, punitive approaches and personal attacks. Never give negative feedback.
c. Recognition and Constructive Feedback
(1) If an employee is meeting or exceeding his goals:
(a) Give recognition feedback.
(b) Set new goals.
(2) If the employee fails to meet the goals:
(a) Give constructive feedback.
(b) Reexamine goals; adjust if necessary.
(3) Whenever you offer constructive feedback, follow these steps:
(a) State the purpose of the discussion.
(b) State how the behavior affects the department, the company, or you.
(c) Ask for the employee's views and listen actively.
(d) If necessary, offer comments, suggestions, or solutions.
(e) Establish new goals.
5. Best Practices For Effective Feedback
a. Focus on the problem, not the person.
b. Keep the feedback task-related.
c. Consider employee's feelings.
d. Give specific information about exactly what has been observed, immediately after it is observed.
e. Praise honestly and often, so your constructive feedback will be heard.
f. Ask for suggestions.
g. Make feedback an everyday occurrence.
Let us here at Lorman Education Services help you find more great resources including upcoming Management and Employment and Labor courses to help you build a better team and compliant business all at the same time.