Management Essentials

Conduct Successful Staff Evaluations

Are your employees on the right track?

By Farrell "Toby" Tyson, M.D., F.A.C.S.

All practices have to deal with the task of evaluating staff. Instead of being a chore, this can be a very productive part of your practice. The keys to successful staff evaluations are honesty, consistency, timing and goal setting.

Honest and Consistent Evaluations

The first and most important aspect of staff evaluations is that they be honest. Many managers and doctors have difficulty expressing short-comings or inadequacies of their staff for fear of hurting peoples' feelings. This is counterproductive to the evaluation process. If deficiencies go uncorrected, they will only be repeated. Over time, this promotes resentment between management and the staff member and may ultimately lead to termination of that person — whose feelings are then definitely hurt.

Evaluations have to be honest and accurate for legal reasons as well. If a staff member is terminated but has nothing but glowing evaluations, it puts the practice in the line of fire for a discrimination lawsuit. Therefore, those performing evaluations need to conduct an unbiased and accurate review of staff performance, attitude and initiative. It is preferable to have two people sign off on each evaluation to help eliminate favoritism or any hint of bias.

Timing can be very important in performing staff evaluations. Most practices evaluate staff at yearly anniversary dates and adjust financial compensation at the same time. This may work well with small practices, but once you have a larger staff this may become a distraction.

We have implemented a yearly staff evaluation that is always performed in January with a financial compensation evaluation in July. This allows for separation of performance evaluation from financial compensation and gives staff members the opportunity to understand what they are doing well, what needs improvement, and what is expected of them. They then have 6 months to make adjustments and improvements before their financial evaluation is performed. This also avoids distracting discussions about raises, as everyone knows they are addressed in July.

A clear and consistent method for performing evaluations simplifies the process for administration and allays staff fears. In our practice, we have developed self-assessment forms that employees must fill out prior to their evaluation by their manager and/or physician. The Employee Self Evaluation opens the dialogue between employee and manager to discuss career plans, training needs, expectations and goals. Managers then fill out job-specific evaluation forms on all employees under them. The Performance Evaluation looks at 15 job traits that are commonly associated with employee success on the job. These forms are then reviewed by administration and/or the doctors prior to discussing them with the employee.

Setting Goals and Expectations

After evaluating the staff on past performance, next address future expectations and goal setting. Short-term obtainable goals and long-term staff/practice development goals must be created. This allows both staff and administration to have a clear understanding of what the practice's future is and where the employee fits into that future. Both parties must participate in this process so that there is employee buy-in.

In some practices, only objective measures are used in evaluating staff. In this economy, getting credit for just showing up is not enough. We now evaluate attitude and initiative. If an employee has great technical skills but is rude to patients, the employee needs to know that this attitude, left unchanged, will be their undoing. Initiative in employees should be fostered — it separates the keepers from the expendables.

We encourage all our employees to take advantage of continuing education online courses. The staff members who avail themselves of these opportunities are not only more motivated individuals, but are better educated and more valuable to the practice. Remember to reward those who do show initiative or else the drive will be lost.

The difference between a growing practice and a dying one can come down to your staff. A good staff-evaluation process that informs, teaches and directs employees will help you to surround your practice with the right type of individuals. OM