One method to provide a formal means of appraising people’s performance is by using performance reviews. The employee and manager together use a structured check sheet to work through keys duties of the employee.
They address both the good, and not so good, aspects of performance. The end result is an unbiased assessment of the employee’s current performance and a plan to improve it over the coming year.
Keywords: rating scale, verifiable, performance standards.
How does your company give feedback?
Mid-year and annual performance reviews are a useful chance to talk to each person in the crew individually. To give feedback, support and encouragement, does your company use a structured approach to discuss performance issues with its people?
Textbooks on organisation systems recommend a formalised procedure when discussing work performance. To reduce interviewer bias, and short-term-memory syndrome, a form listing all the performance criteria relevant to a position, with clear standards to be achieved, is developed.
Down the left side of the form is recorded the necessary criteria for the job and the performance standards required. For example, a trade position may have ‘Trade skills’ as a criterion. A satisfactory assessment might be to ‘Use manual skills, tools and knowledge to rebuild machinery to original specifications without excessive supervision’.
The rating scale
The rating scale is across the top of the page. Finding the right words for the rating is hard. To get the best result, the appraisal experience should be honest, fair and friendly.It is important that the rating system be verifiable. Words like ‘good’ and ‘average’ should be replaced with a recognised level of accomplishment. ‘Good’ could be replaced with ‘Betters standard more than half the time’. Use up to 10 criteria on the form and five grading levels. Leave space under each criterion for written comments.
It is important that the rating system be verifiable. Words like ‘good’ and ‘average’ should be replaced with a recognised level of accomplishment. ‘Good’ could be replaced with ‘Betters standard more than half the time’. Use up to 10 criteria on the form and five grading levels. Leave space under each criterion for written comments.
Holding a review meeting
A review meeting is just that – a time to spend considering past performance, telling them how they have been seen to work and together working out ways to strengthen any weaknesses.
Everything that is said in a review meeting must be fact. You need to talk about real situations, real happenings and real effects. Only then can people see that you are being straight and honest with them. It means that you have to do your homework before the meeting.
You can use the form to canvas the views of other supervisory people that work closely with the person being reviewed. Let them use the form to rate the person. Again they must be honest and considerate, but accurate. You can then check your own rating against theirs and investigate discrepancies.
Summary
The review process is a great way to spend ‘quality time’ with the people in your operation. If it is used as a tool to help people see where they are now and then to show them where they need to go, it becomes a useful exercise for all.
Mike Sondalini – Maintenance Engineer
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