Performance Review Plan

 

Introduction

 

            An employee is the most important asset of an organization. Their performance and conduct can make or break an organization. Hence, it is important for an organization to monitor the performance of every employee continuously throughout the year. This can be brought about by the development of a proper Performance Review Plan for the employees. Each employee has a different skill set, knowledge, individual strengths and weaknesses, and goals. But often employees fail to display their full potential due to a lack of certain skills, proper training, or due to their problems. This can lead to bad performance, which will ultimately harm the organization. Therefore, It can be used to resolve specific job objective shortcomings or to solve concerns with conduct. Advancement in overall productivity, the identification of capabilities or training deficits, or potential employment measures like relocation, suspension, or dismissal are just a few examples of the potential outcomes.

 

 

The key skills that are needed to be evaluated

 

Personal skills are half-intrinsic and half-developed throughout professional life. These skills enable the employees to achieve their goals. The most important skills that can be categorized and are needed to excel in an organization are personal learning efficiency, communication skills, achievement of goals, working on weaknesses and strengths, punctuality, time management, and the ability to work in a team. These areas are needed to be accessed both by the organization and by the employee. We have discussed how each of these skills can be assessed individually.

  • Personal learning proficiency – The employee and the organization where they are working need to compare constantly his performance on a task basis. For each goal or deadline set for work, the assessment should be based on whether the employee is using his skills more proficiently than in the last project or if his performance has deteriorated from the last time
  • Communication skills – To work in a professional environment, the foremost criterion is good communication skills. The most organization has this as a primary requirement as through proper communication the employee is representing not only himself but also the entire organization. Lacking that skill can affect the productivity of the organization
  • Achievement of goals – Achieving goals or fulfilling deadlines should be the most important part of a performance review. An employee constantly needs to work on their speed and efficiency to achieve these goals under a strict deadline
  • Working on individual weaknesses and strengths – This is a factor that a professional needs to access on daily basis to improve their work outcome. They should develop a mindset without additional motivation to excel in areas where they are already strong and to parallel work on areas that drag them down in their professional life
  • Punctuality – A virtue that helps every individual to succeed in life. This discipline cannot be enforced but should be inbuilt into an individual. Without this, no goals can be achieved. Hence, it becomes an important part of the review process
  • Time management – Without proper time management, the objective of the organization and individual objectives cannot be achieved. It is seen that people with the most efficient time management skill has been able to move up to the top of the ladder. Hence, an organization must assess each employee strictly on this set of skill
  • Ability to work in a team – working proficiently in a team results in the best work output. Therefore, the organization must develop strategies to motivate teamwork and find out the best ways to achieve it.

 

 

How to develop the plan?

 

The Performance Review Plan can be broken into five stages:

  • Identify the issues – The employee and the organization should first identify which of the above issues are affecting an employee's performance. Sometimes the reason can be personal issues like physical or mental health or issues related to a lack of proper training
  • Discuss the issue with the employee – The next step towards developing the plan is to have a professional dialogue with each employee regarding their issue, what is bothering them and where they need guidance
  • Setting goals – Discuss the issues and map out a plan to solve them. Along with that, discuss the goals that you need an employee to achieve. If possible, keep the goals small, easy, and achievable at first to motivate them to fulfil it
  • Give proper training – Give them proper training in the areas they are lagging. See how much they can follow the training process and if they are trying to work on their skills or not after the training
  • Review their performance regularly – Keep tabs on their performance after proper guidance has been provided to decide if they are improving and working on their skill or not. This will help you to decide which employee to keep and who to terminate