Effective employee evaluations
accomplish more than just improving your workforce's performance.If you aren't offering employees feedback
through employee performance reviews, you're not alone. One survey found
that 45 percent of North American workers said they receive no annual
evaluation, according to the article "Appraise This" in the May
1999 issue of Canadian Business Magazine.The reasons-or excuses-for this 'failure
of feedback' are numerous: Performance reviews are too time consuming.
It's an uncomfortable process. Employees expect a raise with every review.
Worse yet: It's a waste of time."Why should I tell my employees how
they're doing?" said a shop owner at a recent regional trade show.
"No one told me for the 15 years I was a technician. My paycheck told
me how I was doing, and now their paycheck tells them."But such reasoning overlooks a key aspect
of employee performance reviews: The value they offer not just workers,
but the business and its owners and managers. While employee performance
reviews traditionally have been viewed as a chance for managers to tell
employees what they are doing right and wrong, that should be only part of
the story. Many shop owners are finding creative ways to use employee
performance reviews to boost morale and productivity, enhance
communication among employees, and receive ideas for improving their
businesses.For example, when was the last time your
employees rated their own job performance? Ron Guilliams takes an unusual
approach to employee performance reviews at Saturn Paint and Body, the
shop he manages in Fountain Valley, Calif. Before Guilliams or another
manager meets with one of the shop's 20 employees for an annual review,
the employee fills out a written evaluation of his or her own performance,
the same evaluation form the manager uses."Then we sit down and talk about it
and see where we agree or disagree," Guilliams says. "If there's
an area where we both see high performance, it gives us an opportunity to
give them recognition and compliment them on that. Sometimes we both agree
there's an area that needs to be improved-and so it's not just us telling
them to improve but them admitting it's an area they need to work
on."Research conducted by Ron Burke, who
teaches organizational behavior at York University in Toronto, supports
Guilliams' experience. The research found that when workers and managers
complete similar evaluations, they agree about 50 percent of the time.
About 25 percent of the time, the boss is more critical. But in an equal
number of cases, the employee is tougher on his or her own performance.The evaluation form Guilliams' shop uses
rates the employees' performance on a scale from 1 to 5 based upon
established shop standards in a variety of areas, including attendance,
quality and quantity of work, adaptability, continuous improvement,
teamwork, organization and planning ability, enthusiasm and customer
follow-up. For each of these areas, a form clearly describes the types of
behaviors and performance that will result in a rating of a '1' (partially
meets standard), a '3' (generally meets standard) or a '5' (fully meets or
exceeds standard). These descriptions take a lot of the subjectivity out
of the ratings for both the manager and employee, Guilliams says."Keep in mind that with this system,
a '3' indicates perfectly acceptable performance," he says.
"Someone would have to be absolutely perfect to get a '5.' I don't
think I've given anyone more than one or two ratings of '5.' What we're
saying is that '3' is the benchmark. If I have a guy with all '3s,' that
doesn't mean he's just an average worker. It means he's meeting all of our
expectations."Guilliams adds that performance reviews
are one of the best ways to convey those expectations. Without that
information, employees can only guess and assume-two verbs fraught with
problems-what is expected of them. He suggests offering concrete numbers
to employees whenever possible: how many flat rate hours they are expected
to turn, how many files they are expected to handle, what level of
customer satisfaction indexing (CSI) they are to maintain, etc.Guilliams says the annual process of
discussing the 8-to-10 page form with each employee has created more open
dialogue within the shop and has helped employees understand how what they
do or don't do affects other employees and customers. "The form even
includes a page where they give their feedback on their manager's
performance," he says. "We also really encourage people to let
us know what areas that they feel they need training in, what their goals
are and how they see themselves fitting into the company in the
future."Dave Dunn, owner of Dave's Auto Body in
Galesburg, Ill. and founder of Masters School of Autobody Management,
agrees that the real value in employee performance reviews is improving
communication. He also doesn't think they should be limited to once a year
but instead recommends meeting with employees quarterly for "company
reviews.""The review process should not be a
judgment session of the employee but a communication session where the
employee gets to offer advice and feel like they have a real say in what
goes on in the work environment," Dunn says, adding that these
sessions improve employee motivation. "Every shop owner I know who
does this says exactly the same thing: They can almost put their finger on
the pulse of the company and feel the difference in the weeks after
reviews. And then it becomes pretty obvious that reviews need to be done
again about the time the three month period comes up because people's
motivation levels drop off."Like Guilliams, Dunn recommends giving
employees advance notice of the reviews and the topics to be discussed.
His form gives employees a chance to comment on how they feel they are
treated, how their managers could improve, and what other changes they
would like to see made. Among the questions:How do you feel about your current
level of pay?Do you feel you are treated fairly at
all times?How do you rate your supervisors? How
could they improve?Do you have any problems with your
fellow workers?What suggestions do you have to make
this a better place for all to work?After the reviews are completed, Dunn
provides a written summary of all the employees' suggestions and what
plans there are to implement them. "Sometimes, something an employee
asks for or suggests isn't feasible, and the answer is no," he says.
"But it's still good to provide an answer, to show that it was
considered, to maybe say, 'We can't do that, but we are going to do this
and this.' The companies that take this seriously really start to see
their employee retention improve."Of course, the meetings also give
employees and managers a chance to review and talk about the employee's
performance. Dunn recommends using objective measurements-productivity,
CSI, profitability, accounts receivable aging-whenever possible.
"Share those numbers with employees so that they can watch their own
speedometer," he says. "The quarterly meetings also allow you to
address little problems while they're still small and easy to handle. The
longer you let that little problem fester, the more difficult it will be
to handle."Dunn adds that the real goal of the
meetings is communication, not reprimanding. "When someone breaks a
rule or steps out of line, there needs to be immediacy associated with the
reprimand," he says. "Saving it up for a performance review
isn't productive for anybody. When there's praising that needs to happen,
it should be done immediately, on the spot, and it should be genuine and
specific. The same goes with a reprimand."Guilliams agreed that 'coaching' has to be
an ongoing process, not something done just in reviews. "If I have
done a good job of coaching this person throughout the whole year, nothing
on the performance review is going to be a surprise," he says.Although it doesn't appear to be used much
within the collision repair industry yet, a concept called
"360-degree feedback" is growing in popularity in the corporate
world. Rather than a review of employees solely by managers, 360-degree
feedback includes evaluations by peers, subordinates and even customers."When done properly, multisource
evaluations can help build teamwork and increase motivation," says
Dr. Robert Ramsey, the Minneapolis-based author of "Management
Techniques for Solving Personnel Problems." "They eliminate the
problems of workers feeling they are only getting an unfair evaluation
from one person and emphasize the need to work well with everyone they
have contact with."Whatever type of employee performance
review you use, Dunn and Guilliams agree that getting started with the
process can be intimidating. But they say that improved employee
communication, motivation and morale make the process well worth the
effort.
