Human Resources

Less common in trades, regular evaluations set company standards

Performance reviews are probably not practiced nearly as much as they should be in the service industry, especially among small service businesses.  The reviews can solidify your team, set performance standards and metrics, and convey a clear message to your employees about where they stand within the company. 

This leads to high performers understanding where they stand and that their superiors value them. It also sends a message to the lower performers of what the standards are and what they need to do in order to achieve them. 

Finally, the reviews can be done at almost no cost with the exception of time. Hiring a professional to come in and facilitate the reviews is probably not necessary.  

We recommend the following things when it comes to performing performance reviews:

1. Do reviews on a regular schedule.  Few things are more terrifying to an employee than hearing their boss ask them to come in for an unexpected review. 

2. Strongly consider a 360 review. This means that employees should be reviewed by their peers as well as their manager.  Several companies use a survey method that sends out an anonymous survey to multiple employees in the company to rate the performance of one of their peers.  This way, each employee receives feedback from multiple other employees they work with.   Google Forms allows you to create these surveys for free.  The forms can be created and sent out via email and all the results can be calculated and stored online. The responses can be kept anonymous as well.

3. Ask questions on a scale of 1 to 5. That way, the results can be tabulated.  Some samples of questions for a 360 are listed below:

   1. On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about this employee’s attitude when dealing with fellow employees?  1 being poor and 5 being very positive.*

   2. On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about this employee’s ability to overcome challenges they face.*

   3. On a scale of 1 to 5, how do you feel about this employee’s desire to uphold the company values and drive toward the company mission?*

   * At the end of each question a space for comments to add clarity to the rating is appropriate and will be stored in Google’s results.

4. Weight the data score. When compiling the data and giving the review, we recommend weighting the score in a way that makes the structure clear to the employee.  For instance, for a Garage Door Technician, you could weight the review as 30 percent coming from your peers, 30 percent from your manager, and 40 percent from the data from your revenue generated last year. 

5. Spread the work. Reviews might not seem important to the employers, but they are to employees, even if they don’t admit it. Spreading the work so that no one has more than eight direct reports distributes the work, which if done correctly can enhance productivity. 

6. Do an anonymous 360 review for ownership, too. Many company owners will be surprised to find out what their employees think about them.  It may also give great insights into things they can do to move the company forward.  

You may choose the review period to be the time at which raises are tabulated. Many companies give raises throughout the year at random times, leading to employees constantly wondering if they are doing well.

Some employees will constantly pester their boss to give them a raise, or plan on leaving.  Whether you give raises annually or bi-annually based on merit, we recommend that they be given at an expected time and based on defined merit whenever possible.