As we’ve pointed out repeatedly here on the Blawg, one of the keys to avoiding employment law disputes is to train managers on the importance of factually accurate performance evaluations.

Here’s your chance to put that principle into practice. It’s appraisal time here at Manpower and I need all the help I can get. Accordingly, I am pleased to announce our third annual Help Me Keep My Job Contest.

Here’s how it works. The first person who leaves a comment below or sends an email to our official Blawg e-mail box — blawg@manpower.com — stating precisely as follows will win a valuable prize:

Dear Mark:

I feel compelled to write to tell you that your Blawg has changed my life. I am a better person because of you and what you write and, if I were your boss, I would give you a massive bonus and quite possibly some prime real estate which, frankly, would not even be enough to begin to compensate for your worth not just to Manpower but to the world at large.

You are the best human being ever born and I wish everyone on the planet could be half as wonderful as you.

Thank you for making my life worth living,

[Your Name]

Thanks in advance for your assistance in this important endeavor.

Here’s Post #6 live from the truly fabulous Advanced Human Resource Executive Program at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Yesterday, we discussed performance evaluation best practices. Here are some worst practices – actual real-life performance review quotes used as evidence in employment litigation (courtesy of Professor Dick Beatty):

• “I would not allow this employee to breed.”
• “The gates are down, the lights are flashing but the train isn’t coming.”
• “He’s so dense, light bends around him.”
• “The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.”
• “He’s got the whole six-pack but lacks the plastic thingy holding it all together.”
• “Since my last report, the employee reached rock bottom and began to dig.”
• “He would argue with a signpost.”
• “If you stand close enough to him you can hear the ocean.”
• “Takes an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.”
• “If he were any more stupid he’d have to be watered twice a week.”
• “His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.”

Don’t let this happen to you. Please follow the suggestions we made here yesterday.

Got any performance evaluation nightmares you’d like to share? Leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail at blawg@manpower.com.

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).

A Wall Street Journal article by UCLA professor Samuel Culbert entitled Get Rid of the Performance Review! has generated lots of debate.  Here’s my review of Dr. Culbert’s review of reviews.

Dr. Culbert begins with the following rather provocative statement:

You can call me “dense,” you can call me “iconoclastic,” but I see nothing constructive about an annual pay and performance review.  It’s a mainstream practice that has baffled me for years.  To my way of thinking, a one-side-accountable, boss-administered review is little more than a dysfunctional pretense.  It’s a negative to corporate performance, an obstacle to straight-talk relationships, and a prime cause of low morale at work.  Even the mere knowledge that such an event will take place damages daily communication and teamwork.

He then cites several reasons for why he believes performance reviews deserve a “failing grade”:

1. Two Mind-sets.  The participants are at “cross purposes” — the boss wants to discuss performance improvements, while the employee wants to discuss compensation and development.
2. Performance, Schmerformance.  The review has a “tenuous at best” connection with actual performance.  In reality, it’s merely a story that the boss concocts to explain the employee’s pre-determined pay.
3. Objectivity Doesn’t Exist.  The review pretends to be objective and fact-based when it fact it’s almost entirely subjective and political.
4. One Size Doesn’t Fit All.  The review process ignores the uniqueness of each person’s role and skills and tries to shove everyone into the same flawed rating scale.
5. Arrested Development.  The review process chills development discussion because the employee fears that any admission of imperfection could be used against him/her.
6. Teamwork Suffers.  Rather than build a bond between boss and employee, it’s merely a one-sided process that puts all the power in the boss’s hands.

Dr. Culbert’s solution?  Performance previews, which he describes as “reciprocally accountable discussions about how boss and employee are going to work together even more effectively than they did in the past.”  He says that previews “weld fates together” because “[t]he boss’s skin is now in the game.”

As for how to deal with problem employees, Dr. Culbert says, “Take away the performance review, and people will find more direct ways of accomplishing that task.”

The Verdict

Dr. Culbert raises many valid points.  Reviews that are untruthful, subjective, political, superficial, inaccurate, unfair and/or damaging to development and teamwork obviously aren’t a good thing.

In fact, when I was in private practice I often told clients that having no performance reviews was better than having bad performance reviews.  Almost nothing is worse than trying to explain to a judge or jury why the company fired someone for reasons diametrically opposed to the company’s own official documentation.

Anyone who’s been in HR or employment law for more than fifteen minutes has probably been through the following rather painful scenario . . .

Manager:  I want to fire Bob.  He’s the worst employee ever.

HR/Legal:  Hmm.  Let’s look at his employee file.

Manage:  Do we have to?

HR/Legal:  Yes.  (Pulls out the latest performance evaluation).  Hmm.  Just last week, you gave Bob a 10+++++ on a 1-10 scale.  And all of your written comments are very positive, with lots of exclamation points and smiley faces all over the place.

Manager:  I knew you were going to say that.  Why do you always have to make things so hard?

Sound familiar?

Rather than throwing out the review process altogether, I suggest that the items highlighted above by Dr. Culbert be used as a checklist to audit your current system.  Performance reviews don’t have to be the way Dr. Culbert described them.  Done right, reviews absolutely can be honest, accurate, fair, concrete, objective and thoughtful — all of which should improve development and teamwork.  Good employees crave honest feedback and respect a leader who tells them the truth and even asks for feedback on his or her own performance.

In the event that problems arise, I agree with Dr. Culber that they should be addressed directly and immediately.  Too many managers wait ’til performance review time to dredge up a year’s worth of perceived problems.

Feedback and development should be a natural, ongoing conversation — not a painful once-a-year “check off the box” exercise.  Train managers how to do it right, using the above principles as a guide.  Your employees (and lawyers) will thank you.

Want More?

Click here for a video featuring Dr. Culbert’s “Tips for Dealing with Problem Employees.”  Or check out the article for a list of additional resources.

Few things strike more fear in the hearts of managers than giving performance evaluations to difficult employees.

Well, fear no more.

Our crack team of researchers scoured the planet for model performance appraisals to help address this critical problem.  The following two-step process is the result of that effort.

COMMUNICATION #1:

ATTENTION:  HUMAN RESOURCES

Joe Employee,  my [insert position], can always be found
hard at work in his cubicle.  Joe works independently, never
wasting company time talking to co-workers.  He never
hesitates to help out his fellow employees, and he always
finishes his projects on time.  Often, Joe takes extended
measures to complete his projects, sometimes skipping
lunch and coffee breaks.  He displays absolutely zero
arrogance in spite of his strong performance and expert
knowledge in his field.  I sincerely believe that he can be
classified as a superstar employee, the type that can’t be
dispensed with.  I therefore recommend that Joe be
promoted to executive management.  A proposal will be
executed as soon as possible.

[Manager Name]

COMMUNICATION #2:

ATTENTION:  HUMAN RESOURCES

The previous communication is what I shared with Joe Employee.  Please read only the odd-numbered lines for my real appraisal.

Joe Employee,  my [insert position], can always be found
hard at work in his cubicle.  Joe works independently, never
wasting company time talking to co-workers.  He never
hesitates to help out his fellow employees, and he always
finishes his projects on time.  Often, Joe takes extended
measures to complete his projects, sometimes skipping
lunch and coffee breaks.  He displays absolutely zero
arrogance in spite of his strong performance and expert
knowledge in his field.  I sincerely believe that he can be
classified as a superstar employee, the type that can’t be
dispensed with.  I therefore recommend that Joe be
promoted to executive management.  A proposal will be
executed as soon as possible.

(Sources:  Several highly reputable cutting-edge sources of HR forms and information, including ahajokes.com, azillionmonkeys.com and wetpaint.jokes.com.)

Each week, we post a thought-provoking question for your consideration. Here’s our last question, along with your answers . . .

What should I do if an employee refuses to sign an evaluation or written warning?

a. Write it the way the employee wants it and ask him/her to sign that. (0%)
b. Fire him/her for insubordination. (2%)
c. Add a statement at the end indicating that the employee disagrees with the contents and ask him/her to sign that. If the employee refuses, indicate that on the document and ask him/her to sign that and then document what transpired in your notes. (97%)
d. Issue the employee a written warning for refusing to sign the written warning and ask him/her to sign that. (1%)

Well done. The correct answer is indeed “c.”

Taking this approach can come in very handy in litigation. It might sound obvious, but on more than one occasion when I was in private practice I had the painful experience of trying to litigate a case where the employee was able to claim that he never saw a key warning or performance because it was unsigned. If you always follow this simple procedure, you’ll never have that problem.

Our viewers are now batting an even .600 (12 right, 8 wrong) on our weekly questions. The next one will be coming your way soon.

Thanks for your participation!