The Importance of Employee Evaluations
“You’re cold…”
“You’re shivering…”
“Freezing!”
“Now you're getting warmer…”
“Warmer…”
“You’re hot, very hot!”
Even children playing the popular "Hot or Cold" game understand that in order to excel (in this case, to locate the hidden item), people need to be regularly updated about their performance. Without timely and appropriate feedback, they could wander aimlessly and never reach their destination.
The above scenario can be applied to any modern organization, and highlights the importance of upper management consistently providing employees with feedback. Regularly evaluating employees and subsequently acting on the results in a timely manner will serve many beneficial roles in the work environment, such as increasing employees’ job satisfaction, improving company performance and productivity, and assessing the workplace for areas of improvement. Overall, this feedback process will contribute positively to the success of the business.
Job Satisfaction
The level of a company’s success depends significantly on the amount of satisfaction employees gain from their roles in the workplace. Due to the time and money involved with recruitment, training, and workplace integration, hiring new employees is a very laborious and costly endeavor. Keeping employees satisfied will help to reduce employee turnover, allowing the company to maintain consistent performance without spending additional time and money on training newly hired individuals.
Most employees gain satisfaction from succeeding at their jobs, and are very interested to know how well they are currently performing and what steps they can take to enhance their output. Employee evaluations satisfy this need by providing feedback about whether an individual is operating and functioning at a satisfactory level within the business, as well as by identifying areas of improvement that they can actively pursue. Employees will be motivated to utilize this meaningful feedback to excel.
However, those effects may be short-lived unless further action is taken. In order to foster long-term employee morale, the company must then progressively recognize the efforts of its employees. If certain workers perform exceptionally well or improve substantially, the company should reward them with additional year-end bonuses, increases in salary, or other incentives. By doing so, it will prove to workers that their performances are being carefully monitored by the company. Otherwise, employees may feel that their efforts were ignored, which will consequently negatively impact their job satisfaction.
Company Performance and Productivity
By taking an active interest in their evaluations of others, the management team can make employees feel like their opinions are genuinely valued. Employees will transform from feeling like an insignificant piece of the company to feeling like they are a part of the team. This will promote employees to take a personal stake in the business, encouraging them to boost their productivity to set an example for others.
This productivity can be enhanced further by providing employees with additional training and development to help them achieve their career aspirations. Certain workers may have unsatisfactory performances as a result of inadequate knowledge or skills. Employee evaluations can help upper management determine which workers need to access additional resources to overcome their difficulties and improve their current job performance. Similarly, if the evaluation reveals that certain employees already have the respect and admiration of their peers and are enthusiastic about pursuing management positions, then these future leaders can be provided with the corresponding training to help them fulfill those goals. Through this process, upper management will maximize productivity by ensuring that all employees are contributing efficiently to the company.
Additionally, employee evaluations can also be used to inform layoff decisions. When the need to lay off employees arises, companies can use evaluation results to identify the weakest performers as candidates to let go.
Workplace Improvement
Employee evaluations are an invaluable resource that will allow managers to regularly identify areas of conflict within the workplace and take action. Oftentimes, issues that plague employees remain unaddressed due to a fear of harsh retribution or a lack of feedback channels. By providing a safe avenue to encourage honest opinions, stress-inducing issues such as underlying friction between employees and their immediate supervisors could be revealed, allowing the necessary remediation steps to be taken. If these issues are allowed to persist, certain employees may be driven to seek alternative means of employment, raising the turnover rate and reducing overall productivity.
Regularly assessing employees’ performances can also improve the company’s protection against legal actions. In the event of disgruntled ex-employees contesting their terminations in court, employee evaluations can be used as a detailed report documenting those individuals’ negative behaviour and unsatisfactory performances. This will also show the court that the company has provided suggestions for how to improve to the employee in an effort to resolve the situation.
Furthermore, analyzing the performance of employees can be a great assessment for the recruitment and application methods utilized by the company to attract talent. Throughout the process of hiring new employees, companies use expensive tools such as application banks, interviews, and psychological tests to predict a candidate’s suitability for posted positions. By evaluating new hires, companies can determine the validity of their selection tools to inform future recruitment.
Overall Message
Although companies have the right to evaluate the performance of their employees, some still hesitate to do so, believing that the explicit process of judgment can be a great source of anxiety and stress among employees. These companies need to recognize that employee evaluation is actually one of the most efficient and effective ways to improve employee productivity and get the inside scoop on areas in need of improvement in the workplace. Ultimately, this process of facilitating growth and development in employees will be key to the prosperity of the business. Although many may consider evaluating employees to be a “necessary evil”, the numerous benefits of this feedback reveal that it is actually not evil, but simply necessary.
Visit www.grapevineevaluations.com for information about a company dedicated to providing effective and efficient software tools for performing employee evaluations.
