Why an employee evaluation process is important to your business
If you have them, you know full well that employees are an essential part of your business. They represent your organization when you aren’t around and are key to helping you grow. In return, you should provide them with the things they need to improve their skills.
Every employee deserves to receive honest, open evaluations geared towards helping them grow, and to help them understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Here are a few reasons why periodic evaluations are a great idea for your company and help you create an employee training and development track with maximum impact.
Keeps contracting employees engaged
Understanding performance is an important part of engagement for skilled technicians because it gives them clear input on what they are doing well. Positive praise is a much more effective way of building engagement than criticism, and an evaluation gives you a great opportunity to compliment your employees when they display excellence.
Gives employees feedback on how to improve
Conversely, if there are areas of the job where your team members aren’t doing so hot, an evaluation lets you give them guidance on how to improve. You can offer personalized mentoring and answer questions that they may have about how to do a certain type of job. This is a win-win because it improves your business and lets your staff to work on their professional abilities to further their careers.
Allows employees to give feedback
Communication in every part of your business must be a two-way street. You can’t succeed by never listening to what people tell you – ignoring customers, for example, is a great way to go out of business quickly.
The same principle of two-way communication holds true for employee evaluations. Let your team members talk to you about things they are struggling with or frustrated about, and do your best to really listen and resolve their concerns. This shows them that you’re open to helping them as much as they have helped your business.
So how exactly should you evaluate your employees if you’ve never done so before? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Keep it simple. Pick 5 to 10 areas that you believe are important for employees be evaluated on. Examples include timeliness, courtesy, professionalism, technical skills, and so on. Don’t overload your evaluation, but try to do a good job of including a broad range of factors. There are many, many good information resources on how to write a good performance review online – here's one to get you started.
- Choose the right frequency. There are 2 schools of thought: the traditional annual timing, or more frequent “check-ins”. Once a quarter or twice a year are popular frequencies for employee evaluation. How often you evaluate your employees also depends on how frequently you communicate on a day-to-day basis. The things you mention in your evaluations should never be a surprise, but a jumping off point from which you and your team can build a plan going forward.
- Factor in customer feedback. Customers are the lifeblood of your business. No matter how great of a technician an employee might be, if they drive away business, they shouldn’t be working for you. Use surveys and informal inquiries to learn about your staff’s customer service, and be sure to reward team members who receive high praise.
Evaluating your employees is vital for successful management and to grow your business, but it doesn’t have to be a tedious, stressful process. Create a simple evaluation checklist or template (there are dozens of free templates you can find on the internet) and facilitate two-way communication to make your evaluations a valuable component of your business.
