Using Employee Performance Evaluations To Reflect On Overall Company Performance

As another year comes to an end, many of us are asking the same question: how can human resources complete employee performance evaluations and connect them to how the company performed overall?  Was there something we could have changed or done differently on an individual basis? What can you learn as you talk to nearly every employee? The short answer is: you can learn a lot from employee performance evaluations that reflect on the company as a whole.

As you reflect and give yourself a company performance evaluation, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. 

If you are already doing individual performance evaluations of your employees, you are off to a great start. However, getting a bird’s eye view of your company can help you understand what needs to happen within the next year and even further into the future.

If you are still struggling to complete employee performance reviews, consider signing up for a free demo of Trakstar Perform to see how we can change the way you’re approaching reviews this time around.

Think About Remote Culture

It looks like the remote workplace isn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Remote employees can be more engaged and productive than employees working in the office, especially as we all settle into this new normal. 

Are you supporting your remote employees? If you aren’t, you might not be getting everything out of them that you could be – especially if you are working in a hybrid environment where some people are working in an office space and others are at home. 

Ask yourself: How are you supporting your remote employees? Are you doing it at all? How can you be better – and how can your company overall be better?

If you are struggling to find something that will work, watch our webinar A Turnover Tsunami to get some ideas about how you can make remote employees feel like they are part of a team.

Look At Different Teams & Departments

While you are looking at your company as a whole, you need to break things down a bit too. Often, we set goals and help out specific teams or departments and let other areas struggle. This creates the feeling of a “silo” among teams and individuals, which can hurt company culture. It is also one of the most common reasons people start looking for new jobs. It also hides problem areas in plain sight.

You might want to consider breaking your company into segments that reflect different hiring practices, onboarding strategies, time zones, and more. It is easy enough to break people into their departments (marketing, sales, IT, etc), but you might not see everything you need to see. By breaking people down in unique or different ways, you may be able to glean more information than you anticipated.

This will look different for every company! Really sit down and think about what ways you break your company into smaller components and ask questions during reviews to those specific people.

Remember You Need To Support All Of Your Employees

Too often, we think that if someone is doing really well, we don’t need to support them. This isn’t the case at all – you need to support every single one of your employees, even those who look like they are doing everything extremely well. Remember that people can fake doing well or knowing what they are doing, and they may actually not be doing well at all. At the same time, your best performing employee could be someone who is simply flying under the radar.

Even if someone is just doing “okay” during their reviews, there is still a chance for them. They may slip and become a liability to achieving performance goals or they could find their niche and become a real asset to the company. It’s hard to keep track of everyone, but it is a necessity.

You need to dig into the data you have and understand how people of all different types are doing. 

Think About Communication

How are you communicating with the people you manage? How are their managers talking to them? Sometimes, simply talking to someone on Slack isn’t enough – you have to switch to a video chat or send them a fleshed-out email. Sometimes a phone call is better. It all depends on the person. We have so many different ways of communicating, but we don’t use them. As an HR leader, the burden falls on you to adhere to best practices and work with people to meet them where they are.

You need to think about communication styles when you are onboarding new employees as well: how can you best communicate the information you have? By trying to improve the ways you communicate with existing employees, particularly those you already have a relationship with, you will be able to train your new hires more effectively as well.

Prepare For Next Year

One simple thing you can do to use employee performance evaluations to reflect on your company overall is to prepare employees for next year so that every year, you get better information. Getting good performance reviews isn’t something that can happen overnight. You need to invest in employee performance management software, spend time focusing on what data you are collecting, and training your employees on how to keep notes for themselves and their reviews.

When you onboard new employees, talk to them about keeping notes, setting goals, and being transparent about what they need. Part of that comes from forming a relationship with them, but part of it is just being organized and ready to go. 

Struggling To Get The Information You Need?

It can be difficult to get the granular data that you need to give a full company performance evaluation. Often, it starts with better individual performance reviews that HR can use to track trends, identify weaknesses, and quantify the data you get. Not only will this information help to give you an overall picture of how your company is performing, it will also help you target the people who need your help, the people who can help you, and give you a seat at the table to be a part of bigger discussions about the future of the company.

In 2022, Trakstar is releasing Insights, HR leaders will be able to use our new Key People Indicator (KPI) dashboard tool that gives you a better understanding of your employees based on up-to-date data. Armed with this information, leaders will be able to ensure their organizations have what they need to invigorate and nurture their existing workforces and make informed decisions when hiring or firing. Even better, in time, you will be able to get a full company performance evaluation against other companies within your niche.