Are you wondering how to evaluate employee performance? You’re just in the right place to uncover those secrets here.

The business world has evolved a lot over the last few years. Due to the global pandemic, employers, leaders, and all the front-line management people are facing several challenges in keeping their employees motivated.

Since then, they’ve used many proactive management techniques to inspire success and overcome challenges. It’s time to modify the parameters of employee evaluation as well.

Companies conduct employee evaluations in terms of comparing people’s work performance with expectations. The format of the report ideally depends on company policies.

Usually, it includes a review of employees’ different tasks and workplace behavior, along with improvement suggestions. It establishes a direct communication path between management and employees. So, employees can easily understand the company’s expectations of them.

Today, we are going to share 10 essential attributes to evaluate an employee effectively. Learn the purpose of employee evaluation and how it’ll enhance employee performance after such a stressful time.

Let’s get into the details!

What to Look for While Evaluating an Employee

American companies are losing $1,685 per employee due to productivity and absenteeism

Stress.org

Employees are the core assets of any organization. To make them real gems, you need to guide them on the right track. Monitoring their work, giving feedback, and arranging necessary resources are all included in this process.

Employee evaluation is the way to review your employee’s work and tell them-

• How they are performing
• Are they walking on the right path?
• How they can improve
• What should they modify in their work?

A strategic employee evaluation system may help you and your employees return to a productive life.

In most cases, employers use employee evaluations to

• Review a worker’s job performance
• Remind workers what the company expects from them
• Drive employees to achieve company goal
• Advice people for their further improvements
• Identify the areas of expertise and weakness
• make important decisions like increments, promotions, and layoffs

After a stressful time, it would be challenging for leaders and managers to lead their employees accordingly.

According to a survey by mental health provider Ginger, 69% of employees claimed that the coronavirus was the most stressful time of their career, and 88% said they had experienced moderate to extreme stress over the past four to six weeks.

Considering these facts, you also have to make changes to your employee evaluation process.

Read this article to learn 8 Effective Ways to Support Your Employee Mental Health.

How to Evaluate Employee Performance – 10 Proven Strategies

It can be tricky when you have several departments in your company and your team members need to perform a variety of tasks.

Below are the most important factors you need to consider when evaluating employee performance:

1. Process of Execution
2. Quality of Work
3. Level of Innovation
4. Degree of Adaptability
5. Amount of Continuous Improvement
6. Power of Planning and Organization
7. Level of Potentiality
8. Ability to Take Ownership
9. Balance Between Productivity and Efficiency
10. Ways to Respond to Feedback

Now, let’s describe each point one by one!

1. Process of Execution

A plan is not accountable until it is executed. Similarly, the qualification of an employee depends on how smoothly he carries out his duties. Observe closely the ways your employees manage time, perform duties, and achieve the goal.

Try to understand whether they are self-sufficient or need extra assistance in their tasks. Then consult what they need to improve their existing tasks or responsibilities.

Check the deliverables so you can know if they do “high-level” work. Every step from start to finish of a task matters to identify an employee’s capability.

2. Quality of Work

Quantity can sometimes be considered if its quality is higher. Monitor the work quality an employee does over the evaluation period. Moreover, examine every detail, including how perfect it is, how much error it has, and what kind of extra effort you need to correct it.

You can collect feedback from other team members or clients. So, you can decide if the employee’s work meets the standards of your company.

3. Level of Innovation

Every company wants its employees to be more creative and innovative when solving problems. Look at your employees’ functions of knowledge, curiosity, imagination, and capability to break the monotony.

It’s important to notice if they are willing to explore new things and bring about changes on their own responsibility.

In order to identify their level of creativity, you can observe how many times they come up with new solutions and are ready to take risks for better results.

4. Degree of Adaptability

After joining a new company, an employee needs to adapt to changing environments and work processes.

So you need to consider:

• Are your employees willing to learn new things?
• Are they able to accept changes positively?
• How much are they capable of updating their working process to accommodate transitions in the workplace?

Find out how the employees take on new challenges and make adjustments to reach their pre-defined goals.

5. Amount of Continuous Improvement

This world is changing every day with the rapid advancement of technology. Also, the growth of a specific industry has different levels of impact on your business.

Moreover, employees must keep themselves up-to-date with the current world and be concerned about the upcoming changes.

However, everyone has the opportunity to learn and grow each day, month, quarter, and year. Look at the desire and level of effort to improve your employees.

6. Power of Planning and Organization

Do the employees complete the tasks on time? Do they follow the framework you’ve set for them?

Also, define how perfectly they follow the rules and meet the goals. They need to maintain a hierarchy and prioritize the tasks so it doesn’t hamper the workflow.

If team members have a focused mind and solid guidelines for performing, they can easily achieve the expected results. So, this capability is surely an important factor in evaluating your employees.

7. Level of Potentiality

Each job needs particular expertise to play the role. Employers also hire a person based on his or her potential to do some specific tasks.

Employees must have the ability to take on responsibilities related to their position. Also, in an organization, several people work in multiple departments.

In order to carry out a concrete goal, each and every person must do their part accurately. Identify your employees’ quality according to defined criteria and how much effort they intend to make for improvements.

8. Ability to Take Ownership

Taking ownership at work makes employees more aware of their roles.

Look closely:

• Are your employees willing to maximize their contributions to your company?

It could be a crucial metric to measure their loyalty as well as performance.

How proactive are they in their job role? Are they focusing on achieving larger company goals? These queries help you understand if they are ready to lead future leaders or not.

9. Balance Between Productivity and Efficiency

Complete work within a pre-defined time period is important. But doing the work accurately with fine quality is also vital. These two attributes are equally important to evaluating an employee’s performance.

Say one employee completes all the work before the deadline, and on the other hand, another employee misses the deadline on regular occasions.

Neither of the cases is good for your organization in the long run. So, measure the quality and quantity of work to analyze an employee’s performance.

10. Ways to Respond to Feedback

Do your employees have the mindset to accept negative reviews? What actions do they take based on your feedback? Is there any drop in your employee’s performance after getting praise from you?

Constructive feedback helps your team members respond to constructive feedback respectfully, and taking action accordingly should be accounted for.

HR Perspective to Evaluate an Employee’s Performance

In the evaluation process, managers usually write and present employees’ contributions, shortcomings, scopes, etc. It goes through some steps. These steps are not fixed; they may differ from industry to industry as well as job positions.

1. Define Performance Standards

Every employee has particular duties to perform according to his or her position. It’s important to set the responsibility of a position before hiring anyone. Also, define a standard process to perform all the tasks. So, you can easily compare an employee’s performance with predetermined standards during evaluation.

It’s better to provide your new employees with performance standards in their first month of employment. It’ll ensure that both employers and employees remain on the same page regarding job expectations. Standards should be the same for equal position holders.

Key takeaways-

• Set achievable task goals with ideal parameter
• Standards should match the job description
• Define clearly how the tasks should be done

2. Set Particular Goals

After setting the work standard, assign a specific goal for each employee. Goals can be similar for multiple team members. Considering their strengths and weaknesses a manager should set measurable, attainable, and role-oriented goals.

Later, you can evaluate employee performance using these goals. Also, it helps you measure their efforts throughout their time at your organization.

Also, you can suggest any upskilling courses for your employees to improve themselves and reach their goals. It can be short-term or long-term, and any rewards to meet the goal should be scaled to their impact.

Key takeaways-

• Goals should be relatable to the job position
• Set employee goals for continuous improvement
• Align individual goals with business objectives.

3. Share Constructive Feedback

There is always a scope for improvement. Track your employees’ performance throughout the year and tell them about their opportunities. Without feedback, it’s difficult for an employee to know whether he’s doing great work or giving less than his best effort.

You can mentor your people and boost employee engagement with effective reviews. This review process should happen on a regular basis. Do praise your employees when the achievement is still fresh. Timeliness is important for negative feedback as well.

Key takeaways-

• Employee feedback should be specific & solutions oriented
• Don’t wait for a quarterly/yearly review
• Don’t criticize or share negative feedback publicly

4. Prepare Yourself for the Evaluation Meeting

An evaluation report is essential to contribute value to sustainable development. You have some preparations as well to tell your employees about their efforts, errors, and advice for future advancement. before the meeting, go through the reports and documents again and take notes about individuals.

Your words should be personalized for each employee. So, they can work on specific points next time. Try to encourage them with positive feedback along with useful suggestions.

Key Takeaways-

• Make a checklist to measure all the attributes
• Highlight the individual’s accomplishments
• Come with personalized advice to each employee

5. Avoid Workplace Comparison

Instead of comparing your employees with each other, drive them to do better. Every employee has his/her own potential to perform a specific job. You need every player to accomplish organizational objectives collectively.

The main objective of an evaluation report is to guide your employees to the right path. Don’t compare the performance report of one employee to another. Rather, encourage your employees to keep it private. Irrelevant comparison creates resentment between coworkers.

Key takeaways-

• Measured performance based on individual metrics
• Advise people focus solely on their problems
• Instruct people on their vision

6. Conduct a Two-Way Conversation

Performance evaluation should not be a one-way conversation; it must be more engaging. Managers and employees should equally participate in the conversation. Don’t limit the discussion only to performance.

You can talk about their career growth, challenges, recognition, steps for senior leadership, and others. It’ll make your employees more loyal to your organization. Instead of repeating past mistakes, your performance conversations should focus on how they can shape their future.

Key takeaways-

• Transparent and collaborative
• Review recent performance and instruct to impact, development, and growth
• Conclude with next steps and follow-up

Depending on your business purpose, individual job role evaluation processes could be different. But these are the basic steps you need to follow in every employee evaluation.

Ideal Employee Performance Evaluation Format – A Standard Template

Below is a format of an evaluation report especially designed for “Digital Marketers“. The organization divided 100 marks here into different criteria and set a maximum mark for each.

The team leader and the HR department collaboratively evaluate an employee giving marks in each criterion. And the employee gets a badge based on the achieved marks.

Below you find a comment section. It includes some suggestions for further improvements.

Olivia Lucas
Content Marketer

Quarter 1: Assessment Criteria

Performance Curve	Learning Curve	Personality Curve
60	20	20

Performance Badge	Description	Achieved Points
Rockstar	Keep Your Good Work Up!	XX

Performance Curve

Manage Deadline	Productivity (Tasks & Goals Reached)	Quality of Work	Reporting Skills	Extra Responsibility
10	25	15	5	5

Learning Curve

Explore new Things Beyond Regular Work	Soft & Technical Skill Development	Product & Domain Knowledge	Knowledge Sharing
3	5	8	4

Personality Curve

Stand Up	Behavior	Cultural Fit	Helping nature	Community
3	5	8	4	2

Comments:

• Do focus on advanced Keyword Research
• Continue doing research on Evergreen content and its impact
• Read some fiction books on a regular basis
• Join more advanced SEO courses
• Study on outreach & B2B communications

Update Your Company Strategy and Evaluate Employee Performance in the Right Way

People are adjusting to the new lifestyle despite hardships. Reopenings and permanent remote work are happening at several companies. To enhance staff productivity, the correct methodology is essential.

It’s hard, but updating your managerial abilities can break the routine of leadership. An informal check-in can be powerful. Hearing from you will reassure your staff, regardless of the outcome.

Employees understand their position and aspirations after an adequate appraisal. People can lose attention under the strain of expectations, daily chores, and targets. To stay on track, they need timely supervision and critical comments.

HR managers may easily direct and evaluate employees with integrated HR management solutions like WP ERP HR. This complete personnel management tool aids employee growth and performance evaluation.

Do you have any more questions about how to rate the work of employees? Do you want to add any other useful tips or steps for evaluating the guide we’ve already made? Feel free to share your thoughts in the area below.