Avoid the Morale-Wrecking Employee Evaluation

Here’s a correct way to take corrective action. Most managers get it wrong.

BY DEREK PREECE, MBA

American statistician and consultant W. Edwards Deming, PhD, is widely acclaimed in Japan for teaching executives the principles that helped them rebuild after World War II and create their thriving automobile industry. His analyses even spanned into human resources. Of one management technique that remains popular today, even in some ophthalmic practices, he wrote the following:

It nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, and nourishes rivalry and politics. It leaves people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior. It is unfair, as it ascribes to the people in a group differences that may be caused totally by the system that they work in.

To what customary management practice was Dr. Deming referring in this harsh denunciation? The answer may surprise you: He was talking about the typical annual employee performance review.

Problems with the Typical Review

Performance reviews can be disappointing or even infuriating. When the manager and employee have very different perceptions of the employee’s responsibilities, performance reviews can end in frustration for both sides. The negative impact of these arbitrary reviews often zero-in on the employees’ negative attributes, adding unnecessary stress to the job and wounding the employees’ ability to work effectively. It also creates animosity between employees and management.

Even though managers recognize the problems with annual performance reviews, they continue to rely on them as if required by federal law. “Performance reviews are rarely authentic conversations,” management guru Daniel Pink wrote in a 2010 article that appeared in the U.K. newspaper the Telegraph. Additionally, the experience is often lengthy and many managers spend too much time preparing for or avoiding annual performance reviews.

In a real sense, employees volunteer their efforts. They can come to the office full of energy and work hard for the practice, or they can just show up, do the minimum and collect a paycheck. Performance reviews that destroy a staff member’s morale will more often result in the latter than the former. You’ll find staff members volunteer less and less effort as their enthusiasm for the job sinks lower and lower.

So what are practice owners and managers to do? How can they help employees grow, improve and progress without conducting a typical annual review? Is there a way to conduct some type of evaluation for employees that doesn’t run such a high risk of battering morale? I believe regular feedback meetings can actually build staff morale if they are handled in the right way. I offer this approach to making an employee meeting successful.

Prepare Before the Meeting

The key to a successful employee meeting is to prepare beforehand. These five strategies will help the manager and staff member get the most out of the meeting.

■ Make sure your motives are appropriate. You should have the employee’s best interests at heart. Your objective for the meeting should be to help the person. If you have any hidden agenda, the employee will sense that and it will damage his or her trust in you.

■ Make sure you fulfill your responsibilities as a manager. You’re responsible for providing the tools and training employees need to perform their job well. In addition, you need to be available to help when employees reach obstacles. You should impart to employees the philosophy that they are accountable for their own level of effort and that they should be continuously aiming to improve. Discuss any work deficiencies at the time you discover them so the meeting does not include any unhappy surprises for the employee.

■ Ask yourself three questions:

• What would help this employee excel in the job?
• What can I do to encourage progress?
• What will the employee need to grow and improve?

■ Attend the meeting prepared to listen. Be ready to understand what the staff member has to say, rather than hold fast to your preconceptions about the employee. The late Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, had this adage: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Before the meeting, try asking your employees to spend a little time thinking about their work, what they have accomplished recently and what they intend to accomplish in the near future. Make sure they understand that they share the onus for improving their working conditions. It is helpful to ask employees to complete an “evaluation and goals” form before the meeting. However, when composing these forms, avoid getting into the “rating game.” Don’t use artificial “1-5” scores. They are subjective and can lead to conflict. Instead, have employees write their thoughts as prompted by a list of job requirements. (See “The Employee Self Evaluation,” page 47.)

■ Exchange the evaluation forms. Do this a day or two before the meeting. This gives each party an opportunity to prepare to contribute.

How to Conduct the Meeting

The evaluations offer a focal point. Openly discuss any areas where the two evaluations differ and seek to understand the employee’s viewpoint. Emphasize the staff member’s strengths and value to the practice. Even for areas where you need her to improve, keep the focus on ways she can learn to do better and help her take responsibility for her own improvement.

For example, it is more effective to say, “What can you think of that you can do to get to work on time?” Let the employee respond rather than you dictate, “You need to get in your car 10 minutes earlier in the morning.” Make sure you leave the meeting having determined one to three areas where the employee has established clear goals. In many cases, these goals may not be to overcome a weakness, but just to learn something new or make a change in his or her personal life that will carry over into work habits.

Following these steps in your evaluation and goal-setting meetings with staff members will help you avoid the pitfalls of the typical performance review and improve morale as employees accomplish their goals and develop a greater sense of satisfaction with their job. The individuals who do not want to be challenged will, over time, decide to find other employment where they can just drift through the day doing only the bare minimum.

Ophthalmology practices today are not as devastated as post-World War II companies in Japan, but with the economic pressures facing ophthalmology now and in the future, keeping morale high and helping employees become as productive as possible will be one of the keys to success. OM

Derek Preece, MBA, is a principal and executive consultant at BSM Consulting, a health-care consulting firm in Incline Village, Nev., and Scottsdale, Ariz. Resources are available at www.BSMCafe.com.