After you’ve conducted and completed performance appraisal or evaluation sessions with your employees, it’s time to shift your focus from their past performance to their future performance. These tips will help you to manage your employees more effectively and ensure that they meet future performance goals.
Set performance goals with each employee. These goals focus on the employee’s specific performance on the job, such as his productivity, output, results, competencies, and behaviors.
Set developmental goals with each employee. These goals focus on building the employee’s expertise, skills, and abilities. The idea is to make strengths even stronger, as well as to develop the areas in which the employee’s knowledge and skills are deficient.
Create real goals. Real goals are specific, achievable, prioritized, measurable, supported by action plans, aligned with the company, linked to your goals, and accepted by you and your employees.
Wander around. Your effectiveness in the performance appraisal process, as well as your effectiveness as a manager, will be greatly enhanced if you spend time working directly with your employees, observing their performance, and maintaining a high degree of contact and communication with them throughout the evaluation period.
Be a coach. Take the time to regularly recognize your employees when they’re performing particularly well, and to provide them with formal and informal coaching, guidance, feedback, direction, and follow-up not only to further build their strengths, but also to upgrade their performance in areas where it has fallen short.
Remember your role. You are your employees’ central role model, and that makes you their most compelling trainer.