The Manager's Guide to Effective, Legal Performance Reviews

Resource Material: ID# 1000085

How you conduct an employee's performance review can have a major impact on how that employee behaves. Many books offer general suggestions for improving performance, but few discuss specific ways to make reviews more effective.

The Manager's Guide to Effective, Legal Performance Reviews shows you how to conduct appraisals with clearly established expectations and no misinterpretation.

Table of Contents:

Re-engineering Reviews

• Paving a Two-Way Street
• Sharpening a Critical Management Tool
• Toward More Dynamic Appraisals

1. Writing the Job Description

• Are Job Descriptions Contracts?
• Audit: The Job Description
• The Key Ingredients
• Are They Up to Date?
• Audit: Discrimination Check
• Conducting a Job Analysis
• Writing the Job Description
• Who should Draft Them?
• Spell Out Your Objectives
• No More Mysteries

2. Establishing Your Expectations

• Setting Performance Standards
• Audit: Performance Standards
• Audit: Evaluating "Intangible" Traits
• Getting Employees Involved
• How to Build Equitable Standards
• Built-in Expectations
• Audit: Measuring Expectations

3. Documenting Performance

• Creating Performance Logs
• Audit: Recording Performance
• Don't Make Assumptions
• Protection in a Lawsuit
• Audit: What to Include in Employee Logs
• Avoid Judgmental Language
• Rely on Concrete Examples

4. Pulling It All Together

• Half Your Work Is Done
• The Sorting Process
• Absorbing All the Data
• Recording Your Impressions
• Rating Scales
• Freestyle Essays
• Critical-Incidents Method
• The Checklist Approach
• Letting Employees Review Themselves
• Audit: Rating Scales
• Pick a Winning System
• Preparing an Improvement Plan
• Preparing Your Review Agenda
• Audit: Identifying Performance Problems

5. The Performance Interview

• The Right Attitude
• Setting the Stage
• Audit: Anticipating the Review
• Conducting the Interview
• Constructing a Dialogue
• Audit: Discussing Performance Problems
• Learn to Listen
• How to Review Satisfactory Performance
• How to Handle Unsatisfactory Performance
• Is a Rating Grounds for Libel?

6. Do's and Don'ts

• Teetering Without Supports
• Errors in Evaluation
• Audit: Avoiding Assessment Problems
• Overrating Poor Performers
• Audit: Reducing the Risk of Bias
• "Outstanding" Review Leads to Court
• When Communication Breaks Down...
• Salary: A Definite No-No

7. Follow-Through: The Forgotten Step

• Pinpointing the Cause
• Audit: Solving Performance Problems
• Finding a Solution

8. Latest Trends in Appraisals

• Peer and Subordinate Input
• Drawbacks of Multirater Systems
• Letting Employees Rate You
• Early Successes and Failures
• 360-Degree Appraisals
• Sample Subordinate Evaluation
• Act on Evidence of Bias
• Appraising 360-Degree Evaluations
• Are Your Measures Irrelevant?
• The Seven Sins

9. Pillars of Effective Systems

• The Right Stuff

Appendix: Software Solutions

• Creating Automatic Appraisals
• Log and Track Performance
• Write Improvement Plans
• Make Your Reviews Bulletproof
• The Downside

Sample Performance Review