Evaluating Performance: Creating a Performance-Based Culture - Essay Sample

Introduction

Evaluating performance is significant for any company. Its principal objective is to develop a framework, which provides employees with guidance, support, and motivation and aids create a performance-based culture (Singh & Twalo, 2015). De Menezes and Kelliher (2011) argue that from the orientation of a particular job throughout the entire profession, employees are required to recognise how good they are in different areas of their career. It is, however, hard to provide themselves with individual objective evaluations. Performance evaluation acts as an essential device that enables managers to receive reviews, feedbacks, and forecasts concerning employee performance and deliberate what requires to be implemented to improve it. One of the most common contemporary appraisal methods that are widely used is known as one-on-one evaluations. It is a formal and regular review of the performance of employees conducted by the managers, which in most cases, happens at monthly or once in a year (Choudhary & Puranik, 2014). It encompasses an appraisal on the progress of employees towards their goals and target. Although it consumes time to formulate targets, it provided an opportunity to identify future career plans and training needs. Lack of one-on-one evaluations in our company is a crucial problem that requires a concrete strategic plan to address since it erodes employee engagement, lowers their self-esteem, and develops unclear reward systems.

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The Main Issue Facing the Company

The main issue affecting the company is lack of one-on-one evaluations. As a formal and planned discussion, it is held in private and occurs between an employee and his manager. The main agenda of the discussion is focused on assessing the performance of the employees and their short-term goals. Thus, lack one-on-one evaluations may introduce other issues in the company that may deter employee motivation, decrease their self-esteem and create unclear rewards systems. Its absence also denies company's managers the required time for evaluating their employees, which in turn display that their workers are not valued, deteriorate their relationship with workers, and fail to show them how their performance is valued in respect to the overall performance of the firm (Choudhary & Puranik, 2014). Lack of one-on-one evaluations is also a significant problem since it decreases the required chances to offer positive feedback to workers, abolishes opportunity to deliberate their employees' professional strategies and development objectives, and clarify performance expectations and standards. Since there are no regular one-on-one evaluations in place, most employees will not save any improvement suggestions or problems. Therefore, this acts as a source of disaffection among employees in their respective jobs. It is only through one-on-one evaluations that they can receive the full attention of the managers as well as concentration on their performance and professional goals.

Reasons for Being a Current Issue

Lack of one-on-one evaluations is a current issue in the company since it is causing a loss of confidence and motivation among employees. A company should have a healthy mix of positive and constructive feedback from the manager to either employees or employees to managers. Where one of this is more than the other, there will exist either a missed growth opportunity, misunderstanding, or miscommunication (Aguinis, Gottfredson & Joo, 2012). Lack of one-on-one evaluation or presence of appraisal technique that does not have an appropriate structure in most cases, also makes the company more reactive instead of proactive. This denotes that workers will only receive order and instructions or feedback from their managers while doing or after doing some tasks, which cannot be ignored. It has, however, been found that a lack of appropriate performance appraisal in an organisation results in a 30% reduction in the performance of an employee (De Menezes & Kelliher, 2011). Therefore, the absence of one-on-one evaluations as a performance appraisal technique in the company, it tends to decrease employee motivation and confidence, making it current issue in the firm (Mohrman & Lawler, 2017).

There is bad communication between the manager and the employees. With a lack of one-on-one evaluations, managers and employees in the company are having an unfriendly relationship and cannot comprehend the primary reason behind it. It also made it hard to resolve challenges emerging from a lack of effective communication (Phin, 2015). One-on-one evaluations should be implemented to describe the conditions under which the performance of employees is judged, for instance, using relevant and meaningful examples, then workers will stay in the company. They will comprehend how to communicate with the managers and other employees as well as best perform their responsibilities.

Employees are also not being recognised and rewarded. One-on-one evaluations provide a chance to recognise and reward workers, which in turn makes them feel satisfied and valued for the duties and responsibilities they execute in the company. Thus, with the present lack of one-on-one evaluations, managers are unable to assess the progress and performance of workers against objectives to determine if to reward them with bonuses, promotions, and salary increase or not. Managers also lack an opportunity to provide verbal feedback and thank employees for their performance. Although financial rewards hold significant importance, they should not be primarily financial. Most employees value sincere and simple acknowledgements that best happen with one-on-one evaluations that maintain employee engagement. Therefore, lack of one-on-one evaluations is currently a considerable issue in the company that should be addressed to enhance employee recognition and rewards.

Significance of the Issue

Lack of one-on-one evaluations in the company erodes employee engagement. Employees in this case as the most affected individuals. When the company does not have one-on-one evaluations, workers are not sure how their daily work contributes to its goal and mission. There is also no sense of development or growth since the company lacks the significant ingredients for improving high-performing and engaged workers (Mohrman & Lawler, 2017). Where workers also see the company as unfair with regard to their performance, there is high probability that they will be demotivated about their future at the company, have low motivation, or even leave the firm. Therefore, for a company with talented workers, managers should determine areas in which employees can improve, which is only possible with the implementation of one-on-one evaluations.

Lack of one-on-one evaluations also lowers employee self-esteem. Since as fore-mentioned that a company that lacks an effective performance appraisal is more reactive than proactive, this tends to decrease employee self-esteem. This is because instead of having constant communication even in cases where they perform something good, they will only hear from manage when they have committed undesired acts. When workers view the available performance appraisal as unfair, they will have low motivation or abandon their profession altogether (Mohrman & Lawler, 2017). When a company has talented workers, managers are required to identify areas within employees that they can develop. Therefore, talented workers as the most affected individuals require feedback, which is best if the provided if the company has one-on-one evaluations. Where the company lacks such performance appraisal, employees become dissatisfied and with low self-esteem.

Lack of one-on-one evaluations creates unclear reward systems. Because of poor communication, workers may not comprehend the connection between their results and behaviours as well as how they relate to performance ratings (Phin, 2015). As the most affected group in the company by this issue of lack of one-on-one evaluation, workers may not understand how their performance ratings influence their rewards. Thus, the absence of one-on-one evaluations makes it impossible to have clear rewards systems required to inspire workers to perform at high levels.

One-on-One Evaluation Strategic Plan

In general, one-on-one evaluations should happen monthly for approximately 15 to 60 minutes per session, but managers should give at least 30 minutes of preparation time. While some scholars recommend that they should be conducted weekly, others perform them monthly with each employee, which primarily depends on the number of workers in the organisation. Regardless of the frequency of performing one-on-one evaluations, according to Zondi (2017), managers should follow a concrete implementation process stipulated below to help the company better manage the current issue of lack of a performance appraisal method.

Planning a One-on-One Evaluation

Employees will generally not appreciate managers who spring a surprise evaluation on them. Rather, workers react well to a good plan or schedule communicated in advance, and they will get concerned when requested to attend a meaning without warning. Planning also ensures employees accept any change occurring in the strategic plan provided managers communicated it in advance. Therefore, managers should follow the following steps in the planning phase.

Managers should first be prepared. For example, they should prepare a monthly calendar that they wish to begin one-on-one evaluations. They should write the names of every employee under a specific day they wish to conduct the one-on-one evaluations. While performing this, managers should consider the amount of time they require to prepare their workers for the assessments as well as other activities, which may happen in the due process. For instance, if the manager has a monthly report that is due on 30th, he should set aside a few days to handling it before performing one-on-one evaluations. This helps him make sure he meets the deadline of the report.

As an alternative to step one, managers may prepare their employees by printing out the calendar. They should highlight the vacant time slots for one-on-one evaluations of workers. They should allow employees to select the most appropriate day that best fits them.

The ultimate step of the planning phase is sending calendar invitations to employees. The manager should send them from their dairy to every employee in the company, for example, titled "(Employee name) one-on-one evaluation" informing them about the venue, date, and time of the appraisal.

Tips for Effective Planning of One-On-One Evaluations

Managers, in one-on-one evaluations, should evenly spread out their workers throughout the assessment period, for example, monthly. They should have thirty minutes of breaks between sessions where they have more than one evaluation sessions on the same day. Where the performance data is availed monthly, they should schedule their low performing workers the sooner it becomes available. They should ensure the evaluation sessions are timely but should not rush their employees. Managers should also consider differing the frequency of one-on-one evaluations in case of new workers or employees performing novel duties. These groups of employees should undergo more recurrent one-on-one evaluations to guide and provide them with more information about the assignments linked to the new job.

Preparation for One-on-One Evaluation

Preparing for one-on-one evaluations needs a significant amount of effort from managers to achieve desired results. These efforts will, however, be reverted to them in tenfold in commitment from their employees and improved business performance. Various studies reveal that workers are highly inspired by managers who recognise their performa...