Career Performance Evaluation - Supervisor Employee: Fill & Download for Free

I had a life-changing experience while routinely processing pay increase approvals at a large corporation. Paperwork arrived one day requesting an exceptionally large early merit increase outside policy guidelines for a young research scientist.After checking the employee's performance evaluation file, I frowned. A few years of excellent work had earned him strong merit increases, but his most recent job performance had slipped badly. No new evaluation supported the extraordinary early increase requested now. His present salary was generous. There was no justification for approval of a policy exception.When I investigated further, it got worse. The immediate supervisor told me his subordinate's performance had plummeted in the few months since his last review! The performance deterioration was so sudden and dramatic that the employee was ordered to take a complete physical examination. It revealed he was dying of a rare fast-acting fatal brain disease.Still in his late twenties, with a wife and kids, he would leave little money to his family. His boss had requested the large early pay increase to raise the base salary which would determine the disability stipend paid while unable to work. Everyone in his chain of command was anxious to activate the salary increase before the unfortunate young man soon officially left work permanently and became ineligible for the raise. I swiftly agreed: the salary increase was a small but worthy gesture.Before approving the raise, I considered what effects the pay increase would have on his total reward package. His final paychecks would be a little bigger. His disability payments would be slightly higher for the short period before he passed. His life insurance amount might change as well because it too depended on base salary. It suddenly occurred to me that our company-paid life insurance policy specified fixed absolute death benefits dollars according to broad categories specifying where the annual salary fell.I discovered that the exceptional increase requested by the boss would not change the death benefit. But if the increase were four percent higher, his salary would enter a higher benefit payment category, doubling the life insurance payable to his family.Quickly calling the relevant top corporate executive, I explained the situation and presented a proposal. By extending our generosity a little bit more, we could perform a REALLY good deed. The executive was aware of the tragedy and had earlier agreed to the original raise for the unfortunate scientist. I argued that another four percent and its miniscule eventual impact on our long-term life insurance experience rate was a small price for the human benefits we could provide.I clarified that our discussion was confidential. No one else was aware of the opportunity I had discovered to help the family this way. No one would ever learn about the possibility if he rejected it. Pointing out that no one had asked for this and we didn't have to do it, I added that once the thought struck me, I could not in good conscience fail to call the opportunity to his attention. His approval was necessary for such an extraordinary and exceptional raise that exceeded the special increase he had originally endorsed.Delighted with my pitch, he hesitated for hardly an instant before agreeing. I then immediately went backwards through the chain of command, informing the various executives and managers that papers authorizing a new salary increase were being prepared as I spoke. They were overjoyed at the news that I had actually approved an even higher amount, had found a way to supply far more insurance money and had already cleared all obstacles. I expedited the paperwork, making sure that the scheme worked as planned, and then told the employee's immediate supervisor to notify him of the unexpected windfall the corporation had arranged for his survivors.When the employee did die soon afterward, his passing was eased and his family's burden was lightened somewhat by the corporate action. No one was told of my part; but I still treasure the knowledge that I was able to make a bureaucratic job highly responsive to human values and to assist other managers to feel pride in both their company and themselves.That was the best compensation I ever received during my career in the compensation field.

You describe the current system as doling out bonuses, appraisals, and other organizational rewards based on a five-category ranking system, presumably completed periodically about a subordinate by their supervisor.Whether these systems are effective depends, of course, on the context and the details of how they are implemented. But they are probably not (at least on their own) the type of system that motivates, energizes or inspires in any sort of meaningful way.I'd suggest focusing on four elements in order to make performance evaluation systems effective.Make evaluation an everyday routine. There's a funny tension in most organizations. People dread these kinds of performance-evaluation ratings. But at the same time, they often crave more feedback. People love leaders who provide regular, diagnostic and constructive feedback. They like working places where debriefing and reflection is 'built in' to everything that is done (instead of just celebrating notable wins or punishing failures). When these kinds of regular, informal mechanisms for giving feedback are done on an everyday basis, the formalized annual or quarterly evaluations feel more predictable and less capricious.Make goal-setting a shared undertaking. Performance expectations are usually set unilaterally by managers and imposed on employees. This makes for performance targets that seem unattainable, unreasonable, or simply irrelevant. A better process involves building goals in a participative way. It is important for goal-setting to take stock of employees' aptitudes, interests and ambitions. Goals should be difficult, but employees need to feel that they are meaningful to their own career path, that they have the right resources (training, coaching, mentoring, etc.) available to make the goals attainable, and that they know how to seek and respond to feedback. When goals seem linked to your own needs and aims, they seem important. When you've been involved in crafting them and see how they related to the organization's mission, they seem meaningful. When you know that they fit with your abilities and are supported with the training and tools you need, they seem achievable.Get the level and the time scale right. Most work is interdependent in some ways. It's performed in groups and teams, not by lone wolves. And, some work involves trade-offs between short-term cheap wins and long-run performance. There are often really ugly mismatches in performance and reward systems here: People sacrifice long-term goals in order to 'juke' their short-term performance. They compete destructively with and undermine one another to bolster their own individual rewards. Performance evaluation systems need to think really critically about matching evaluations to the level (individuals, subteams, teams, units/departments, etc.) at which work is accomplished, and matching evaluations to the behaviours that contribute to long-term goal attainment.Build trust and fairness. It's vitally important that any performance evaluation system be seen as fair, and be implemented by someone who is trusted. This means that it has to be transparent; employees should know how the system works, since they were involved in crafting it. It has to be consistent, applied the same way to employees without favouritism or bias. It has to be correctable, meaning that mistakes can be fixed or wrong decisions appealed. Evaluations also have to be delivered by someone who is not only a fair player, but who employees feel are interested in their own well-being.Reward systems are not at all my speciality, but here's my personal view:Get those elements right, and even the clumsiest "five star" type system can work reasonably well. If you're evaluating the right behaviour at the right level of analysis, if the goals involved are set in a participative way with employees who are supported with the right resources, and if you're giving regular feedback as a part of the work process, and if the people conducting the evaluations are seen as trustworthy and guided by a fair process... well, even silly rubrics like stars or letter grades can work.And, on the flip side, even the most sophisticated feedback system will likely fall apart if these elements aren't present. You can have 360-degree reviews with multiple raters and reliable instruments, but if the goals seem arbitrary or unattainable, if the process is not guided by people who you trust care about your interests, or if the process is focused on the wrong time scale or level of behaviour, it's unlikely to be any better than a clumsy 'star' system.

The performance evaluation process is an ongoing, proactive effort designed to align employee responsibilities with the mission and goals of the College and their department. Employees must have a clear understanding of expected results, receive coaching and feedback, be included in a structured, recurrent performance review, be recognized for meeting expectations, and develop capability when deficiencies exist.An effective performance evaluation process requires open communication between the supervisor and employee, aligns the employee and the organization for growth and development, and ultimately provides data to support analysis and decisions related to:Providing a basis for career growth;Providing the college president with consultation in decisions on promotions and discretionary salary increases;Creating a guide to reevaluate job functions;Providing a base for performance improvement;Providing the college president with consultation in making a decision to renew or non-renew a professional’s appointment.Annual Performance Evaluation CycleA Performance Program is vital to the success of the College and the professional employee in the fulfillment of the College’s goals and operational needs. The performance program outlines duties and responsibilities for a given position, articulates short and long term goals, identifies secondary sources (internal and external constituents who are equipped to provide performance related feedback), and provides the scope of the overall professional obligation.Performance programs shall be developed in consultation between the supervisor and employee. The programs generally cover a 12 month period and should be reviewed and updated annually, or whenever the employee’s duties and responsibilities change in a significant way.Professional employees cannot be evaluated without a written performance program. Failure to develop a performance program breaks the performance evaluation cycle and undermines the objective of effective performance management.