It’s Your Performance Evaluation – Own it!

Creating effective performance evaluations is factual, not the place for “fluff”. For you and your boss to be pleased with the results takes work and time. The advantage is that you both benefit from the results. They have selected positive information to include in their report to upper management and you have submitted data specifically tied to monetary compensation and/or negotiated benefits for the coming year.

Let’s look at your bosses’ role and the part you play:

Do you have an annual or quarterly performance evaluation? Is it written or oral or a combination? Does your boss write it and send it to you for comment before the formal evaluation?  If your answer to some or all of these is “no”, then what?

The Role of the Boss

Your employer generally is paid to solve problems, creating an efficient and effective work environment. Many larger organizations have specific forms relating to work results – performance evaluations are frequently part of that process. It will come as no surprise to you that many bosses hate to do performance evaluations, and some put them off, or ignore them if they possibly can. Some even skip the entire process and tell you what monetary increase you will receive, or you find out when your pay check changes.

The Role of the Employee

Employees contribute to the overall success of their group. Evaluations typically contain items relating to your job description. They may also contain items related to teamwork, communication, work assignments completed, and overall organization support.

Do you personally track your progress?  In addition to any reports you are asked to provide periodically, what kind of records are you keeping yourself?  Are you giving your team and yourself full credit for the contributions you are making?

There are a few facts you need to arm yourself with:

• Your job description is a generalized document – a starting place. It is what you do with it that counts.
• You need to be on a continual learning cycle. What kinds of information do you need to become more effective at your job now and the one you want for the future?
• You need to have a healthy communication relationship with your boss, so you have a better idea of what is important to them. After all, they hold the gold – the key to your financial future!
• Whether the organization requires it or not, you need to prepare quarterly accomplishments, noting any problem areas to work on during the next quarter.  This saves you time, effort and frustration as you get close to annual evaluation time.

The bottom line is that you can and should take control of your performance, documenting positive and negative issues, noting potential resolutions to problems. Finally, you should annually load selected accomplishments into your updated resume. You never know when that next opportunity will come your way!