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360 DEGREE FEEDBACK

3 Pitfalls to Avoid in Performance Appraisal ...or on America's Got Talent

Evaluating performance is one of the most important aspects of employee performance management. In order to develop employees and keep them engaged, employees must receive performance feedback that is not only an accurate assessment of their actual performance, but also identifies both their strengths and development areas. Unfortunately, managers do not seem to have as much fun evaluating performance as Sharon Osbourne or Piers Morgan do on America's Got Talent. Often times, managers are overwhelmed by the performance appraisal process and struggle to spend enough time on the actual appraisal of performance.
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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

7 Steps to Becoming a Performance Appraisal Process Rock Star!

The performance appraisal meeting is, by far, the most dreaded part of the performance appraisal process. In order to handle the performance appraisal like a rock star, you must be doing the right things year round. The foundation for an effective performance appraisal meeting is built one stone at a time, throughout the course of the performance period. During performance planning, individual performance goals and measures are agreed upon. This process creates a mutually acceptable yardstick for evaluating performance effectiveness. Through the monitoring of performance and periodic performance update sessions, the employee acquires a clear understanding of interim performance. Thus, the path has been paved for reduced subjectivity and stress in the performance appraisal meeting.
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360 DEGREE FEEDBACK

Deal Us In: Everyone Wants in on the Performance Appraisal Process Action

As our clients gear up for the year-end performance appraisal process, we are frequently asked whether other stakeholders should participate in the feedback process. As more and more managers are taking on a larger span of control they often have less of a direct opportunity to observe the performance of each and every employee throughout the year. As you can imagine, this situation can result in a less-than-meaningful performance appraisal discussion. Add to this the fact that more employees are working in a team environment and therefore have the perfect opportunity to observe the performance of their peers and provide valuable feedback on strengths and development areas.
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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Pulling Your Hair Out from the Performance Management Process?

3 Ways to Improve the Performance Management Process by Getting to the Heart of Performance Issues. As HR leaders and coaches, we all spend time supporting managers in the performance management process. We patiently listen to managers as they describe the problems that they are experiencing with an employee, the impact of these issues on performance, and coach them to discover ways for improving performance. Nonetheless, when all efforts fail managers end up at their boiling point. Sometimes we need to take a step back and help managers look more closely at why their efforts are falling short. We cannot effectively improve performance without first determining the true cause of the issue or problem….or we may be fixing the wrong problem.
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HR SOFTWARE

Crowdsourcing and Curating the Performance Evaluation Process

Human Resources has jumped on the crowdsourcing bandwagon - leveraging a unique form of the social phenomenon to create better Performance Evaluations. Crowdsourcing was originally coined by Wired Magazine in 2006 Wired and typically refers to businesses involving a community of anonymous people to achieve a particular task, collaborate on a specific project, or solve a challenging issue. Leveraging a crowd for business tasks that have traditionally only involved one or two employees has the benefit of enhancing decision-making and idea generation as diversified opinions, perspectives and expertise are contributed.
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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Save the Self Appraisal in Employee Performance Evaluation

Employee Performance Evaluation is here to stay! In fact, more feedback and discussion about performance is what employees want and what organizations need.
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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Canned Performance Evaluation Comments are the SPAM to Our Filet Mignon

We are living in a recommendation reality. Linked In suggests people I need in my network, Amazon has another must-read Leadership book for my Kindle, and iTunes seems to know I would like an iPad version of Fast Company. And this is only in the business realm – of course Pandora selects my music, Netflix my movies, and Groupon my new neighborhood hangout. It’s true, I’ve grown quite comfortable letting algorithms guide my decision-making, but I do have standards. I will never, EVER, let a software application tell me what performance feedback to provide one of my team members of colleagues.
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360 DEGREE FEEDBACK

The 360 Degree Feedback Tug of War

The 360 Degree Feedback debate rages on..... In a recent blog post, 4 Risks of Linking 360-Degree Feedback to Performance Appraisal and/or Compensation, the author makes the argument that 360 degree feedback cannot be used for performance appraisals or compensation. She makes several points, including:
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PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

The Many Faces of Performance Appraisal Discussions

Part of coaching for ongoing performance improvement is being able to effectively provide performance feedback. Managers must be able to communicate feedback, during ongoing coaching and in performance review discussions, in a way that facilitates awareness and acceptance in order to encourage behavioral change. In his whitepaper, The Five Faces Managers See During Performance Reviews, Kris Dunn (www.hrcapitalist.com) writes about various “faces” or personas of employees that managers may encounter during performance review and/or coaching discussions. The Diva thinks that he is an exceptional performer. He is likely a high performer in one or two areas but also has some significant development needs. He really does not think that he has much to learn from his manager and can negatively impact team performance due to his poor self awareness. The Deflector thinks that she has been dealt a bad hand. She has an external locus of control. As such, there is no point in trying harder because too many things are in the way of her success. The 9 to 5’er is looking to work 40 hours a week and can be easily annoyed when asked to do more. He is looking to meet expectations within the hours available and does not have interest in putting forth any extra effort. The Upwardly Mobile/Unsure seeks to excel but is unsure of what she wants in her career. She puts forth extra effort and seeks feedback, but may get bored if not provided with career direction. The Star is one of the best performers in the company. She regularly exceeds expectations and chooses when to influence others. She is not sure that she has anything to learn from her manager. I am sure that we could all add a few more characters to this list! Nonetheless, the personas embodied by these five represent some of the challenges managers face in their role as coaches. No wonder performance appraisal gets such a bad rap. Reinforce Ongoing Performance Management
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