Here’s Post #5 live from the truly fabulous Advanced Human Resource Executive Program at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

One topic near and dear to all employment lawyers’ hearts is performance evaluations. Each of the professors this week has included at least a snippet on this all-important topic.

Simply put, if you don’t measure the right things the right way, you’ll encourage the wrong behavior, get trounced by your competitors and probably find yourself in court defending discrimination lawsuits.

Here’s a simple evaluation evaluation drawn from some of the material presented this week.

EVALUATION EVALUATION

Rate your company’s performance evaluation process in each of the following areas (1-10 points):

1. Rating criteria are tied to true customer-focused competitive differentiators specific to each position (versus purely internal-focused and one-size-fits-all).
   Score: ____
2. Rating categories are weighted based on importance (versus all are treated equally).
   Score: ____
3. Objectives are clear and measurable (versus vague and subjective).
   Score: ____
4. Evaluators give candid, honest feedback (versus sugarcoating).
   Score: ____
5. Ratings truly differentiate among employees (versus most get the same score).
   Score: ____
6. Performance input is obtained from multiple sources, including subordinates, peers, managers and key customers (versus manager only).
   Score: ____
7. The evaluation measures both the what (results) and the how (behavior, collaboration, people management and ethics).
   Score: ____
8. Progress versus objectives is part of a regular on-going discussion with employees (versus a form-based one-time-only annual meeting).
   Score: ____
9. Top executives use the system (versus ignore it or do their own).
   Score: ____
10. Performance evaluations are closely linked with incentives, promotions and terminations.
    Score: ____

OK, now total up your points. Here’s an official evaluation of your evaluation evaluation:

• 0-30 points: Deficient (bankruptcy and class action lawsuits imminent)
• 31-50: Needs Improvement (bankruptcy/lawsuits highly likely)
• 51-65 points: Mediocre (bankruptcy/lawsuits likely)
• 66-80 points: Good (bankruptcy/lawsuits unlikely)
• 81-100 points: Outstanding ($$$ and happiness highly likely)

For more on performance-related issues, I highly recommend The Differentiated Workforce by Dick Beatty and others (Harvard Business Press 2009).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under Performance Reviews, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.