Everything you need to conduct legally safe employee evaluations.

The Performance Appraisal Handbook is a must-read for every manager, whether you’re writing a performance review for the first time or the hundredth. It's packed with the information and tools you need to make your company’s appraisal process work better for everyone.

Find out how to:

motivate your staff to perform better

help employees develop and grow

identify poor performers and help them get on track

avoid common legal traps and problems

increase employee morale

foster good communication

safely fire poor performers who fail to improve

Written by an employment-law attorney and reviewed by an expert advisory board, this guide provides a unique combination of practical and legal information, plus easy-to-follow steps. You'll also find checklists, sample forms and policies, and audio dialogues on CD-ROM.

The 2nd edition is completely updated to cover the latest legal developments.

The forms from the CD-Rom, are available under the Appendix B of this EBOOK
*The CD-ROM is not included with the digital version of this book.

Chapter Highlights

Performance appraisal is a process, not a form. It structures your relationship with employees while providing legal protection for your company.

A good appraisal system includes observation, documentation, and communication.

A performance evaluation system can provide many benefits: it can improve employee performance and morale, identify poor performers and ways they can improve, and lay the groundwork for legally defensible discipline and termination.

A manager's attitude helps determine whether a performance appraisal system will succeed. If the manager is enthusiastic about the chance to work with employees to improve their performance and their work experiences, the employees will share that enthusiasm.

A good evaluation system includes support, motivation, communication, collaboration, fair treatment, documentation, formality, and accountability and is consistent with the company's core values and purpose.

Managers should use evaluation systems to improve future performance, not punish employees for poor past performance.

Employees must participate in every aspect of the evaluation process. managers can increase employees' job satisfaction and engender their trust in the process by bringing them into the loop and giving them power and responsibility for directing and assessing their own performance.

Managers must give feedback on an ongoing basis, not just at the yearend meeting. managers must document employee performance as it occurs throughout the year.

Although communicating negative information is difficult, not communicating it can be much worse.

It's a common misconception that performance appraisal entails simply filling out an evaluation form -- answering prefabricated questions and checking boxes. If this were the case, you wouldn't need an entire book to help you do it right, and your evaluation wouldn't be worth the paper you wrote it on.

When done correctly, performance appraisal is a process, not a document -- it is a way of structuring your relationship with your employees. A good appraisal system includes observation, documentation, and communication. It envisions a workplace in which supervisors know what is happening in their departments (who is doing what and how well) and document employee performance as it occurs. Supervisors and their employees should have open lines of communication. Employees should know how they are doing so they can make adjustments when they veer off track. Supervisors should know what obstacles get in the way of their employees' performance so they can remove those obstacles as they arise.

Performance evaluations provide valuable continuity in a world where employees can change departments and managers during the course of a year. Often, a manager doesn't have the benefit of having observed an employee for the entire appraisal period. If every manager documents employee performance on an ongoing basis, the new manager can more easily pick up where the old manager left off.

Proper performance evaluations also provide important legal protection for your company and you. Sooner or later, despite your best efforts, you are bound to have difficulties with an employee. When this happens, an effective, legally sound performance evaluation system can serve as your first line of defense. Not only will it help you identify and deal with most employee problems before they rage out of control, it will also lay the groundwork for discipline and, if necessary, legally defensible termination when problems cannot be resolved.

 

Everything you need to conduct legally safe employee evaluations.

Introduction

The Value of Performance Evaluations
The Value of Legal Knowledge
Who Wrote This Book
Who Should Read This Book
How to Use This Book
Icons Used in This Book

1. An Overview of Performance Appraisal
The Benefits of a Performance Evaluation System
The Elements of an Effective System
Your Role
Model Appraisal System

2. Legal Traps
Don't Destroy the At-Will Relationship
Don't Undermine Potential Terminations
Don't Harass or Discriminate
Don't Retaliate
Don't Forget to Document

3. Performance Objectives
Identifying Job Requirements
Identifying Goals
When to Set Performance Objectives
Writing Requirements and Goals

4. Observation and Documentation
Observing Your Employees
Maintaining a Performance Log
Documenting Ongoing Feedback

5. The Interim Meeting
Scheduling the Meeting
Preparing for the Meeting
Conducting the Meeting
After the Meeting

6. The Year-End Performance Appraisal
Writing the Evaluation
Presenting the Written Evaluation to the Employee
Planning the Appraisal Meeting
Conducting the Appraisal Meeting
Reassessing Job Requirements and Setting Goals

Appendixes

A. How to Use the Forms CD-ROM

Installing the Form Files Onto Your Computer
Using the Word Processing Files to Create Documents
Using PDF Files to Print out Forms
Listening to the Audio Files
List of Files Included on the Forms CD-ROM

B. Tear-Out Checklists and Forms
Checklists:
Avoiding Legal Trouble
Identifying Job Requirements
Preparing an Employee for Goal Setting
Identifying Goals
Writing Performance Objectives
Documenting Performance
Information to Gather for a Performance
Appraisal
Assessing Performance
Common Performance Appraisal Errors
Agenda for the Year-End Appraisal Meeting

Forms:
Performance Log
Kudos to You
Tickler for You
Performance Evaluation

C. State and Federal Laws Prohibiting Discrimination
Federal Fair Employment Laws
State Laws Prohibiting Discrimination in Employment

Index
*The CD-ROM is not included with the digital version of this book.

Takes the 'legal guesswork' out of writing and conducting employee performance appraisals, providing all the answers managers need at every step."

 

"Offers advice for employers who dread an annual workplace ritual: formal appraisals."

 

"This book should be on the shelf of every supervisor."

 

 

Performance Appraisal Handbook,The by
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