Talk about your people. Every organization has some way of assessing job performance, some kind of performance evaluation process. The key to making it work is to have your key parts be close enough to those people to make sure they are getting factual information.
We have an independent file reviewer. We’ll have five evaluations, and we might have Linda go in and look independently at the evaluations. We have a meeting of reviewers, then meet with counselors, and we go to the round table, and we’ll say, ‘Let’s talk about Mark. Let’s talk about the feedback we got. How can we help Mark succeed? How could we deploy Mark more effectively?’ It’s one of the best ways to evaluate an employee. It’s very focused on helping improve employee performance with leaders who want to help.
Do it more than once. There needs to be multiple timely reviews. You can’t just say, ‘Your year is over; tell me how you did.’ This isn’t a once-a-year exercise. It’s built into our culture and ingrained into our day-to-day. We talk about it in orientation, and we do it throughout the year. Even though we’re busy, we understand the importance of this process.
Employees understand that it’s a high-performance culture. The reviewers also understand the importance. The team holds itself accountable to make sure it gets feedback. Your e-mail says you have a feedback request, you know that it’s important to get that taken care of.
We measure that the reviewer responded to the request in under 30 days. By having that rigor in the process, by knowing they need to get it done, by understanding the round-table process, they all see the fairness and the importance you put on it.
Be encouraging. Create an environment that has the best combination of people, experience and opportunity. Encourage people to take responsibility for their own careers. Ultimately, the recognition is promotion.
Encourage them to learn and be challenged and have that experience. What I say to folks is this is why we’re going to be different. Everybody has an opportunity to be a top performer. That has been the secret to job satisfaction.
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