When that time of year rolls around and you're doing performance ratings on your employees, you may find yourself tempted to go with your gut feelings about them when assigning scores. If you or your organization has established a legitimate system of determining values though, it may be best to ignore your instinct. Humans are naturally inclined to be biased in favor of people we like - perhaps that evolved a long time ago - but sometimes whether or not we like an employee doesn't tell the whole story.
Early on as a manager, I can remember countless annual performance appraisals where I would catch myself arbitrarily leaning towards higher or lower scores based on how much I liked my reports. That just isn't fair. As my mentors (and HR reps) would remind me every year, you've got to be able to support those scores with data. If someone's a smart-aleck but you check his file and you've never coached him on his communication, then that's on you for not setting the proper expectation. Similarly, if you have a rock star who you're about to give a high rating for dependability, take a peek at her attendance recorded before you put her down as a top performer. Not sure about your sales woman? Check her portfolio performance. How about your tech support agent? Be sure and go over his QA scores.
It's important to document interactions both of the recognition kind and the opportunities for improvement, and do so throughout the entire review period; otherwise at the end of the year you won't have the whole picture. If you've got a report that's a solid team player who just rubs you the wrong way, or who's in need of improvement but frequently buddies up to you, then do the right thing and score them accurately.
You owe it to your employees, but also to yourself and your organization. It's only after you truly know where you stand that you can effectively plan the way forward.
*Special thanks to Shizuka for finally getting me to start my blog.
And then there are those situations where the employee is both great and awful. They are on time, get a lot done, have a great attitude but have write-ups against them for technicalities: a customer complained about them when they refused to break company policy for them. Or they misfiled an important paper because they weren't properly trained. Nobody wins in those scenerios.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely important to separate good friend from good employee! Maybe they're the same and maybe they are not. Any buddies you employ had better be objectively the best or you'll be accused of nepotism and favoritism. You might be accused of that anyway though so it's really a no-win and a situation best avoided.
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