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Performance Reviews Help Create Great Employees
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Article 5: Engage The Employee
In the popular imagination, a performance review is a one-way street: A supervisor hands a written evaluation to an employee who is expected to accept the assessment without talking back.
An effective evaluation, though, engages the employee in a productive way. Indeed, the employee can get involved even before the evaluation begins.
“It’s a good idea to have the employee do a self-evaluation in advance of the performance review,” advises James J. McDonald, a partner in the Irvine, Calif., office of Fisher & Phillips, a nationwide employment law firm. “This can often achieve a ‘buy-in’ by the employee with respect to areas that need improvement.”
If the employee agrees that he or she needs to improve in an area, it makes improvement more likely.
Such self-appraisals, notes McDonald, are not binding on employers. In other words, you need not agree with the appraisals of the employee. But they make great starting points for discussion.
And there is a legal benefit, adds McDonald. “The self-evaluation can provide compelling evidence that the employee admitted there was a problem as opposed to later contesting a poor evaluation.”
During the review, the employee should be encouraged to offer as much feedback as possible to what the supervisor says. Are there any specific examples of great performance that the employee believes the supervisor may have forgotten? Can both parties reach agreement on areas that need improvement?
Also, the written evaluation should contain room for the employee to add comments.
“Those comments are not binding on an employer, but they can be acknowledgements that improvement is needed or they can provide early warnings of problems the employee might be having with a supervisor or co-workers,” notes McDonald. “This gives you time to take action before a problem develops into a legal situation.”
Finally, says McDonald, employees should be asked to sign their evaluation.
“If they balk, just add a note that says ‘The employee refused to sign.’”
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