Evaluate employees’ progress. We try to make sure that they’re evaluated after each job and that that evaluation is discussed with them. Beyond that, at the annual basis, there’s a self-evaluation and also you evaluate your supervisors, and they evaluate you. It’s important information to read and stay up to date with so you can react and make adjustments.
As an example, for communication skills, the leadership evaluation [asks], ‘Keeps my team and others informed. Expresses thoughts clearly and forcefully. Is an active listener seeking to fully understand the meanings of others’ communication.’ Every supervisor and manager is graded on a possible score of 4 to a 1.
Say a supervisor ranks very low in the communication skills. You’re going to sit with them and get some feedback from the employees that work with that manager: How can the communication skills of that manager improve?
Say, ‘If I were to do this next time around, these are some of the techniques that I would use.’ Do it through a learning experience. Sit with that individual and give them some feedback as to how they can become more efficient and effective in doing that work next year. You’ve got to be constructive, but be honest with the individual, too. Ask them what they did [and] what they should be doing.
If a person’s got the leadership trait when they do the predictive index, you’re going to let them take it on their own a lot easier than if you’re talking to someone that draws on the left of the axis when it comes to leadership. They’re more of a follower. Knowing the strength of that individual on the predictive index, you’re going to go, ‘This person’s a leader,’ you just feed them the information. The person that’s more to the left of the axis on the leadership trait, you’re going to sit with them and go, ‘Here’s how it should be done.’ They want you to give them the road map.
Stay in touch. A lot of the problems with the employees don’t necessarily come up to the top. You don’t want them dying at the employee level. [It takes] constant communication with the employees to get that feedback. Don’t play the CEO role; play a humble role and communicate with the employee so you can fully understand what their problems are.
Lunch is probably one of the best places to really get them free of stress and let them open up. I try to … not have a meeting that’s set up on a certain time and ends by another time. Let people have a constant communication and jump around in questioning so you can, at the end of the conversation — however long it lasts — get a true feeling of how that employee feels about the firm and their progress.
It’s important to take it out of the office. In the office, you’ve got the phone, the e-mail, various things that are going to draw your attention, so outside of the office is always critical to get the employees relaxed and feel that you’re giving them 100 percent of your time.
How to reach: Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra LLP, (305) 373-5500 or www.mbafcpa.com