9. SUPERVISORS AND EMPLOYEE EVALUATIONS. As a supervisory tool, employee evaluations serve to quantitatively measure an employee's work performance. As a motivational tool, employee evaluations can serve to affirm an individual employee's satisfactory, above average, or exceptional performance. The problem with most Performance Evaluations (PE) is that they are not done on time, are not objective, and are not done, in most organizations, frequently enough to effectively motivate individual employees. A PE consists of a systematic appraisal of the employee's performance and of his or her potential for development and training. It is usually done by the employee's immediate supervisor and is then reviewed by the supervisor's superior. Reviewing the PE with the employee, pointing out strengths and indicating areas needing improvement, is essential if the employee is to improve his or her work performance. Many methods are used including the Rating-Scale Method, Comparison Method, and the Essay Method. All have their advantages and disadvantages. No matter how much care the supervisor gives to evaluating his or her employees, the results frequently reflect the supervisor's biases and weaknesses. The "halo effect" occurs when a supervisor lets the rating he or she gives an employee in one area affect the rating he or she gives in another area. The supervisor may say the employee is average in his job skill and then have a tendency to rate everything else about the employee as average. Some supervisors tend to be too lenient or too strict. Others are tough. It's difficult to decide on which of two employees to promote when each of them has been rated by different supervisors--one tough and one lenient in his or her appraisal. Some supervisors don't know their employees well enough, so they don't go out on the limb and say anyone is either superior or poor. Therefore, they rank everyone as average. Supervisors who do this believe they don't hurt anyone this way, but they are not helping the deserving ones either. Personal biases can cause problems. A supervisor sometimes unconsciously rates an employee according to whether or not he or she personally likes the employee. The end use of appraisals also materially affects the way supervisors rate average employees. If the supervisor knows the appraisals are to be used for wage increases, the ratings will tend to be higher than normal so that the employee will get a pay increase. If they are to be used to determine whether or not the employee needs training in an area, they are apt to be a little on the low side. The thrust of the PE interview is for the supervisor to review the progress the employee made since his or her last evaluation. Areas in which the employee made significant improvement need to be pointed out. In areas where progress has not been shown, the supervisor should make constructive suggestions for improvement. An interview is almost always doomed to failure when the supervisor saves up a list of shortcomings and unloads them on the employee during the interview. The PE interview should give the employee an opportunity to discuss his or her job problems and aspirations with his or her supervisor, as well as give the supervisor the opportunity to assist the employee become a better worker. Finally, the supervisor needs to make sure that the employee clearly understands the ratings and there are no unanswered questions. Given the proper encouragement, most employees will emerge from an PE interview with renewed vigor and determination to do a better job. George (1979) listed several advantages that can be gained from using an employee evaluation program: 1. You have a permanent written record of the relative strengths and weaknesses of your employees, which can be used for salary changes, promotions, transfers, demotions, etc. 2. It forces you to evaluate an employee's performance and potential--forces you as a supervisor to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each of his or her employees. Thus, you know them better, thereby putting you in a position to do a better job as a supervisor. 3. In case of contention over promotion, pay, and the like, you have a sound basis for your decision. 4. Once an employee comes to understand some of his weaknesses, he will be stimulated to set goals to improve him or herself. 5. Areas in which training is needed become more obvious, and training courses can be set up. 6. An individual employee's talents are more apt to be recognized and used where they are most needed in the organization. 7. The evaluation serves to help eliminate employees being poorly placed or misplaced (p. 198). Finally, George (1979) offered the following tips on how to effectively use PE's in organizations: 1. Never let employees evaluate or rate each other. This is management's responsibility and should be done by a member of the supervisory staff. 2. Never discuss one employee's rating with another employee. 3. Evaluate the employee's performance at least once a year. Twice a year is better. If you wait too long, you forget. If you rate too often, you see day-to-day occurrences instead of the overall picture. 4. Measure an employee's skill against what the job description reads, not what you think he or she can do. This makes the evaluation more accurate. 5. Take plenty of time for the evaluation interview. Don't let the phone ring during it, or permit other employees come in and interrupt. 6. Always include discussion of goals and mutually agreed upon improvement programs for the next appraisal period. 7. Don't terminate an interview until you have cleared up all misunderstandings about the present rating, future goals, and what the employee expects. 8. Be honest and candid in your appraisal. If an employee's work has been poor, say so. Then assist him or her in seeing where and how it can be improved. 9. Soften your criticism by saying something positive. Without a balanced delivery, the employee may become defensive and effectively tune out anything constructive you might say later. 10. Follow up interviews by subsequently checking with your employees on how they are performing, the progress they are making, and what their problems are. This demonstrates interest on your part and can serve as a stimulus for the employees to strive for improvement (p. 199). It is impossible for a supervisor to accurately evaluate any employee unless he or she actually watches the employee perform his or her job. Too often, supervisors are busy and assume they can see or hear what an employee is doing, and yet do not. Observing an employee on the job once or twice during an evaluation period is not enough. If PE's are only done once a year, then a supervisor needs to observe his or her employees in action at least once a month at a minimum to be able to objectively evaluate his or her employee. The surest way to create defensiveness in an employee is to evaluate him or her when there has been no direct observation on the supervisor's part at any time during the evaluation period. Being able to reference observations with the evaluation can and will eliminate defensiveness. Every effort needs to be made by the supervisor to base every evaluation on the context of the employee's overall job and on the employee's total job performance. Basing a rating on only one aspect of an employee's performance or on the way he or she performed on a particular job would not be fair. Instead, the appraisal needs to be based on the total record of what the employee has done, how well he or she has performed, his or her total reliability, resourcefulness, and so on. Evaluations are not perfect, but with some thought and work on the supervisor's part, they can be fairly objective and can serve useful ends in rewarding and ultimately, motivating employees.