Employee Performance Reviews

Measuring & Interpreting Results

There never seems to be enough time in the day and now your employee performance reviews are due. Your first challenge is determining what rating to give each of your people.

 

 

 “Find out how to measure results and assign ratings for your employee performance reviews”

 

Measuring results sounds easy, but it is often done in a way that lacks fairness. This is partly because many mangers wait until the performance appraisal to give any feedback at all, making the result a surprise to the employee.

For tangible objectives such as sales results or number of units of work completed you will find that unless you were very specific when defining the target there is still some room for interpretation.

Take the example of a sale person

A sales person who met their annual sales target, however this was made up of seven good months where sales were above target and five bad months where the sales target was not met. Did this employee meet expectations?

It depends was the target to meet the end of year result or to meet 12 monthly results?, what if the last five months were the bad months, would this change your view?

So, the first step to measuring results is to define the objective clearly, this is something that you get good at overtime.

Now, more on measuring results

 

 

Measuring Results

There are a number of ways to measure performance and determine which rating you ill give your people. The method that you choose will depend on

• Which rating system you have selected

• The nature of the performance goal, tangible or intangible

• How well defined the performance goal was, and

• What feedback you have given the employee during the year

To ensure that you are well positioned for your performance reviews let’s look at each point in more detail.

 

 

Your chosen rating method

From our rating methods page, you will find the following rating methods are typically used in employee performance reviews.

• Graphic rating scale

• Global Rating

• Essay Rating Method

• Behavioral Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)

• Management by Objectives (MBO)

 

Each method requires a slightly different approach to determining the employees overall rating. However first let’s look at a few common considerations

• Source the data that you will use to determine your rating

• Review the feedback that you provided during your one on ones since your last appraisal

• Review the criteria that you set at the beginning of the appraisal period

• Find out what others people in your business at your level are doing

 

Now, for some specifics on each rating method

 

 

The graphic rating scale

When completing your employee performance reviews using a graphic rating scale you may find that there is no criteria for each of the rating intervals, this makes it hard to determine if one of your employees should get a rating of a 3 or a 4 (for example).

The challenge this creates for you is to be fair and consistent. One technique that may help with this is to identify an employee who is maybe slightly above expectation and another who is slightly below expectations and then as you rate your people determine which they are more like and assign ratings accordingly.

When you have hard data with a clearly defined performance standard this is relatively easy, however if you are rating your people on teamwork, you may find it a little harder. 

 

 

Global Rating

When using a global rating method in your employee performance reviews, you may find it helpful to complete a quick pass through all of your people and assign a rating.

Then group all of the people at each rating interval and ask yourself “Are these people all on par with each other?” repeat for each rating interval. Then as a final check make sure that there is a difference between the people at each rating interval.

 

 

Essay Method

The essay method is one of the hardest methods for completing your employee performance reviews, unless you are a talented writer. Before starting your writing you may like to list all of the common items that you would like to include in your essay, for example

• Productivity
• Quality
• Attendance
• Cooperation
• Teamwork

Once you have this list you may like o then consider and list all of the unique qualities about each of your employees. Using the common list and the unique list for each employee and regardless of your writing abilities you will be able to formulate a comprehensive essay.

 

Behavioral Anchored Rating Scale

Using the Behavioral Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) to assess your employees requires that you have a current knowledge of your employee’s behavior. With this method you need to compare your employees observed behaviors with those listed in your rating tool.

From this comparison you will be able to determine your employees rating.

 

 

Management by objectives

To use management by objectives in your employee performance reviews to determine overall performance rating does place greater emphasis on you accessing records of your regular discussions with your employee.

In management by objectives your overall rating is very much dependant on the quality of the discussions that you have with each of your people throughout the year.

One thing that you may like to try is advising your employee of the rating that you would give them at the end of each monthly one on one and the reason for this rating. This way both you and the employee will have the same expectation at the end of the year.

 

Now let’s look at some common scenarios that you may be faced with in your career

 

 

Common Rating Scenarios, Tips and Techniques

When completing your employee performance reviews you may come across some tricky scenarios, the following are common

• The whole team is below target

• The measure is intangible

• A new employee is still learning

 

 

The whole team is below target

If you have set a target and you find that everyone in your business is behind that target you have to determine if the target was fair. You will need to find out why the team is not meeting the target. If the team is working hard and the target is too high then you may need to rethink your target. If the team is really just a poor performing team then what has the manager been doing?

When the individual’s performance is related to paying bonuses and the bonus is linked to pre determined performance targets, managers are often reluctant to change the targets. However, someone can miss their goals that relate to their bonus but can still be rated as a good performer related to team performance. The best performer in your team should not be rated as a poor performer, it will be de-motivational.

One thing that you can do in this case is to calculate the average performance in your team, then determine where each of your people fit, they are either below average, slightly above average or well above average.

 

 

The Measure is Intangible

Many managers insist on all measures being tangible or easy to measure, which of course is ideal as tangible measures are not as subject to bias or interpretation as intangible measures.

However, well managed intangible goals can result in significant increases in employee performance.

So, how do you do it?

Each month you have a frank and honest discussion with your employee about how you see their performance, including how you would currently rate your employee’s performance and why. You may also find that early on you can ask your employee what rating they are aiming for.

Each month you revisit this conversation and advise the employee what you would need to see from them to increase your view of their rating. At the end of the year you take the average rating from each of your one on ones. (make sure they understand this is how they will be assessed)

Do not shy away from using intangible measures. If you need to use them, then use them. Only, at intervals of no greater than one month you should have an honest discussion with your people, one on one about their performance and how you would currently rate them.

 

 

A new employee is still leaning

How do you rate new employees, they are often performing below performance targets, however they are not generally poor performers.

For your employee performance reviews there are two ways to look at this scenario and it depends on your organizations policies which way you go.

For the end of year performance appraisal you can either

 

Summary

As a leader, when competing your employee performance reviews you will have to allocate sufficient time to determining each employees rating. You should review your one on one notes and consider all supporting data.

You will find that there is no substitute for having regular open and honest conversations with your people about their performance through out the year and ensuring your end of year appraisal is consistent with these conversations.

 

 

Next Steps

Now that we have discussed measuring results, let's take a look at some common rating errors that you should avoid in your employee performance reviews.