5 Essential Factors of Successful Employee Evaluations

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Performing employee evaluations can be nerve-wracking, especially for new managers. As a leader, you need to choose your words carefully so you don’t demotivate or devalue your employees. But how can you do it?

Today we’re bringing you a list of 5 essential factors of successful employee evaluations, as well as some tips and example evaluation questions for you to use in your future meetings.

Key Takeaways

• Having data to back up your feedback is vital.

• Set SMART goals with your employees during their evaluations.

• Ask for feedback from your employees as well.

• Choose your words carefully so you blend honest feedback with encouragement.

Five Essential Factors of Successful Employee Evaluations

1. Back Up Your Feedback with Data

   First of all, think about the kind of data that is relevant for the evaluation. Which aspects of the employees’ performance are important and should be noted and reported on?

   Is it whether or not they’re late? Or how much time they spend on certain tasks? Or whether they watch funny YouTube videos for three out of eight hours?

   All of these things can give you insight into how productive each individual is and allow you to demonstrate how they need to improve or show them what they’re doing just right.

   Employee Monitoring Systems

   There are many digital platforms now called employee monitoring systems that can do all of this work for you, giving you hard data to rely on when the next employee evaluation comes around.

   By using computer monitoring software throughout the year, you’ll have all the numbers you need for a fair evaluation.

   Show the employee how much time they spent performing productive or unproductive activities and how many projects they’ve completed successfully, as well as what were their biggest hiccups within the past year.

   Turn to the key performance indicators (KPIs) and compare their results. It’s essential that you demonstrate hard facts when delivering feedback, whether it’s positive or negative.

2. Ask for Peer Reviews

   No matter how hard you try to get to know your employees, chances are that the person sitting next to them knows what they do or don’t do well much better than you will ever be able to.

   Consider getting employees’ (anonymous) input on their coworkers’ performance. After all, they’re the ones collaborating, and they will certainly be able to provide you with insight that is coming from a completely different viewpoint. They might even point out some things you didn’t notice. 

   Create a standardized survey you can hand out to participants each time you’re performing an evaluation. Gather all comments, and pull out an average that can help you add some final thoughts to your personal employee review.

   These insights can also be invaluable for estimating the social atmosphere in the team, which is definitely one of the factors affecting the overall team performance.

3. Set Goals for the Future

   At the end of the day, you want your employees to succeed, stay on the team, and continue to thrive, so as important as it is to provide feedback, it’s also crucial to set some goals for the future period.

   Your goals need to be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely). Depending on the department the employee is in, the specifics of the goals will differ.

   However, the deadline for these goals should typically be your next evaluation meeting. This can be on a monthly, bi-monthly, or even yearly basis, but the employees will appreciate it if these evaluations are regular.

   Besides helping the worker allocate their workload more efficiently, goals will help you perform a more effective appraisal.

   You’ll have set standards on which to evaluate their progress and give pointers for further improvement, and employees will know what you expect from them and what they’ll need to focus their efforts on. This will also help alleviate the stress that they so often associate with employee evaluations.

4. Choose Your Words Carefully

   Now we get to the fine details of delivering the evaluation. You have all the data, peer reviews, and your SMART goals, and now you need to face the employees. There are a couple of things you should bear in mind when choosing your words when evaluating workers.

   • Balance encouragment with honesty. Honesty is key. That is the one thing that you shouldn’t compromise. However, choose your tone and words with care.

     There are certain sayings you should avoid while trying to critique or praise your employees and knowing how to phrase your feedback is critical for their self-esteem, job satisfaction, and future performance.

     For example, saying “Stop wasting your time on irrelevant things” is not going to be received well. Instead, try something like this: “I believe you can improve your productivity by leaving personal correspondence and brief entertainment for after you’ve done the task at hand because this way you won’t lose focus.”

     This phrasing is much more helpful for the employee. Now he knows what he needs to do and why accepting the suggestion will help him improve.

   • Give specific action items. With every critique, indicate how exactly you want the employees to change their behavior and how this change will help them.

   • Speak professionally. It should go without saying that insults, swear words or shouting are off the table, no matter what.

   • Be generous and specific with praise. Don’t forget to praise your employees when they deserve it. Tell them explicitly what areas they are excelling in and what they are doing well. Do this generously, but don’t go overboard – this is still a business setting.

   • Keep your evaluation brief. Nobody wants to listen to discourse for 3 hours, not even if it’s about themselves.

5. Ask for Feedback

   Successful collaboration and employee improvement is a two-way street. Giving them your side of things is important, but don’t forget to ask them for their feedback. You, as a manager/business owner/HR rep, also need to grow.

   Having employees tell you what they like or don’t like about the way the team is run, your interactions with them, or even the evaluation process itself will give you a clear direction for your future improvements. This survey can be anonymous in order to encourage honesty.

   And of course, don’t forget to actually read the feedback you get and try your best to apply what you’ve learned.

Tips for Performing Successful Employee Evaluations

Here are some practical tips to help your employee evaluations go as smoothly as possible.

• Take notes. Especially when you’re meeting with multiple employees, it can be all but impossible to keep track of everything you talk about in your evaluation meetings. Plus, in addition to jogging your memory, taking notes will show your employees you’re actively listening to them.

• Use job descriptions. Your team’s job descriptions are the foundation for your employee evaluations. They clarify expectations, inform future goals, and focus employee efforts.

• Use the opportunity to build professional relationships. Look for ways to build rapport, invite friendly discussion, and show your employees you value them and care about their wellbeing.

  A good way to do this is to ask what you can do to help make their jobs easier or more enjoyable.

• Keep your evaluations consistent. This goes for both the timing of your evaluations (whether they’re held annually, every six months, monthly, biweekly, etc.), and the structure of your meetings.

  Some conversations may last longer than others, but go into each evalutation with the same blueprint for what you’re going to talk about. This will help ensure employees feel they’re being treated equally. Your HR department may even have an outline for what they expect you to talk about.

• Ask questions. Asking open-ended questions throughout your employee evaluations will help you get better information from your team and let them know that you truly care about what they have to say.

Questions To Ask In Your Employee Evaluations

If you’re looking for ideas for questions to ask in your employee evaluations, here are a few to start with.

• What would you say was your greatest accomplishment at work this year?

• How would you evaluate your performance this year?

• What are some challenges you faced this year/are facing?

• What can I do to help you with those challenges?

• What do you need to make your job easier?

• Which of your goals did you hit for this review period? Which ones did you miss? Why do you think that is?

• What is one area you want to grow in this year? How can I help you do that?

• What is a new skill you’d like to learn this year?

• What do you hope to achieve at work this year?

Final Thoughts

Having learned about these five important factors for successful employee evaluation, you’re now hopefully less daunted and better equipped to handle this significant step in making your team and your company grow.

Combining data from an employee monitoring software with peer reviews, setting goals, and using an encouraging tone to report on those findings will benefit your employees and your business objectives, and their feedback will help you grow along with them.

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.