Appraisals may feel like an annual chore that takes up too much time or perhaps just a paperwork exercise for the sake of it, but communicating with your employees is so important for morale and development.
Even if you only have a handful of employees, the benefits of managing performance are huge! There is much in the news currently about productivity in the UK lagging behind the G7 – so how can managing performance effectively ?
• Are your employees clear on what is expected of them?
• Do your employees have agreed job descriptions which show what effective performance is for their job?
• Do your employees know how their performance and objectives contribute to the overall business goals?
• Do your staff have manageable workloads?
Have regular meetings…
Regularly meeting with your direct reports is the first step to effectively managing performance; and makes a manager truly manage their staff. It is a great way to recognise positive performance, address any areas of concern or any training needs.
No one likes to be kept in the dark about their job or their career, and your employees want to know how they are performing, what they do well and where they could improve. But most importantly employees need to know what’s expected of them. So by setting up fit for purpose job descriptions, meeting regularly and having clear objectives you’ve always got a framework to manage and improve performance!
Keep employees motivated…
Motivate your employees to improve their performance, by setting goals with them, making sure that they know you want them to succeed. Commit to meeting with them – don’t cancel 1 to 1s, these meetings are important.
If you’ve done all of the above the annual appraisal will be a breeze – you’ll have full details of your employee’s performance year already, you’ll have tackled any difficult situations and performance issues before they can escalate in to a bigger problem! Don’t surprise your employees with a performance issue once a year at their appraisal, deal with it straight away, before it becomes too big. Remember, you can only be as good as the people that work for you.
You might need some help to set up your framework – writing your job descriptions, appraisal forms, advice on how to tackle performance concerns. PA Angels can help you with that…
Get in touch – call 01621 680818 or email info@pa-angels.co.uk