Employee Performance

Guest Blogger: Shawn Chorney, Vice President,Enrolment Management, Indigenous and Student Services at Canadore College

Have you ever tried to build or repair something without a set of plans, a user manual or any guidance on how something is meant to operate? Chances are, you have and that much of the time you manage to figure it out on your own. Think hard for a minute though about the times that you couldn’t figure out what had to happen next and how you felt in that moment. Frustrated? Disappointed? Stuck? Now consider, that running blind on a project is much the same as failing to provide guidance to your employee team on their performance, attitudes and abilities. Many organizations look at employee performance management only when things are going poorly and as a punitive tool meant to correct a behaviour that is undesirable. Why wait? Employee engagement stems from knowing what is expected of you and how you will be able to achieve results for the organization at which you work. When performance planning and performance evaluations are conducted on a regular and recurring basis, they become part of normal operating conditions, building confident two-way communication that is rooted in trust.

Employees will know that you hold their growth and development at the core of your work and as a result, they will work hard to reach new heights. Performance planning also establishes a road-map for professional development and training to maximize return on investment for what are typically limited training dollars.

These are just a couple of examples of the benefits of performance planning and evaluation. Others include:

• heightened organizational culture on matters of health and safety
• an ability to engage in transparent and meaningful succession planning
• improved communication both laterally and throughout reporting structures
• opportunity to ward off costly behaviors that may undermine team performance
• enhanced employee engagement as a result of understanding their impact

Although employee performance and evaluation can take some time at the front end; it takes a lot less time and costs much less resources than reacting to issues as they arise. Just like proactive approaches to safety prevent accidents, proactive employee development prevents poor performance and employee team outcomes.