BY LINDA F. WILLING
When was the last time a performance evaluation at work really made a positive difference in your life? If you answered never, you are not alone. Some fire departments have found routine performance evaluations to be of such limited value that they have eliminated them altogether. Other organizations keep up the process, but the people who engage in it do so mostly out of habit or necessity. It is the exception rather than the rule that organizations really invest in making performance evaluations an important part of employee development and a process everyone looks forward to.
Look forward to performance evaluations? For many of those who do employee evaluations, such an attitude seems impossible. Instead, they may see the routine appraisals as something that they have to get through to get to more interesting and important work.
There are two main reasons performance evaluations are ineffective. First, the system in place is inadequate. The system’s flaws may arise from evaluating the wrong things (e.g., rating administrative skills for someone who does not routinely perform in that capacity) or applying a qualitative scale to something that is quantitative (e.g., rating an employee on a scale of 1-10 on whether that person has ever been late to work).
The second big problem with performance evaluations is that most people who do them have little or no training and support in the process. If training is inadequate or absent, the evaluator is essentially “winging it” and can easily fall into any of the following evaluator traps:
- Excessive leniency or severity. Evaluations that are either invariably too harsh or too accommodating tend to say more about the rater’s temperament than the subject’s performance.
- Halo effect. If an employee is very good at one thing, especially something that the evaluator personally values, it may be tempting to rate that worker high in all areas regardless of actual performance.
- Centralizing tendency. Evaluators sometimes choose the safe middle ground for all employees—such as giving everyone ratings of 6 on a 1-10 scale. This tendency may be more common when the evaluation system is inflexible or when the rater is worried about being perceived as the bad guy if the rater tells the truth about employee performance.
- Recency effect.It may be tempting to rate an employee entirely based on a recent event, for better or worse, rather than on that employee’s full performance history during the rating period.
Performance evaluators need several kinds of support to maximize the system’s effectiveness. When this support is absent, the result may be worse than just making the process meaningless. If poorly done, performance evaluations can incur liability for individuals and organizations and cause real problems down the road.
EVALUATION SUPPORT SYSTEM
A performance evaluation support system, at the very minimum, includes training, openness, and follow-up.
Training is essential for anyone in the position to formally evaluate another employee. It must be consistent and departmentwide and should include not only clear guidance on how to use the evaluation tool but also how to do basic coaching for performance problems and how to manage difficult or confrontational conversations.
Such training is not something that you can do once in a one-hour block or through some online program. Although online technology can support training efforts, it is critical that people are able to get their questions answered and also have the opportunity to discuss potential problems and scenarios among their peers. In addition, developing coaching and conflict resolution skills is an ongoing process and must be included in regular training programs, not only for supervisors but for all firefighters.
Technical training on how to use the evaluation tool (e.g., the form, the computer program, etc.) is also essential. What may seem self-evident to one person might be completely confusing to another; and without consistent standards, the results will have little value. Recognize that some supervisors may be less comfortable with high-tech applications and their lack of comfort with the evaluation tool itself could skew the results.
Openness in the evaluation process is critical for organizational success. This is not to say that evaluation results must be shared openly among all workers (although in organizations where merit pay raises take place, such information is largely available). It is more important that an evaluation history is available. This is a controversial point. Some organizations feel that it is better to withhold past evaluation scores from the current evaluator to give that person as much of a clean slate as possible in doing the current evaluation. It is true that one officer’s judgment could influence that of another officer—positively or negatively—when scoring a firefighter’s most recent performance. Some people might feel constrained to do an honest evaluation if they know that others may see their comments and scores later.
But consider the alternative. Without access to past evaluations, it is impossible to evaluate progress toward stated goals. Such a system of complete secrecy and stand-alone evaluations may inadvertently harm an evaluated employee. Suppose Officer A evaluated the firefighter and gave scores of 8 and 9 on a scale of 10 because that officer felt the firefighter was doing a very good job. After a few years, however, Officer B is now responsible for evaluating the firefighter and gives scores of 7 and 8 on a scale of 10, reflecting the feeling that the firefighter was doing a very good job. The firefighter’s performance may not have changed (or it might have actually improved), but the evaluation indicates that the firefighter’s performance has declined.
FOLLOW-UP
Follow-up is a key component for any performance evaluation system to succeed. The employee, the officer in charge, and the organization as a whole are all responsible for appropriate follow-up for shortcomings noted and remedies suggested. Every evaluation should include a follow-up prescription, and the officer in charge should be held accountable to ensure that the prescription is fulfilled. For example, if a firefighter is having difficulty operating some piece of equipment, a follow-up prescription might include having that firefighter work one-on-one with the engineer, take outside classes, or demonstrate proficiency at some later date. Whatever follow-up is appropriate, it is the officer’s responsibility to ensure it is done and that the results are documented.
In some cases, officers do the best they can, but performance evaluations are still inadequate because the system currently in place is poorly designed or not applicable to the type of work firefighters do. In this situation, it is necessary to change the system, which is a daunting task and beyond the scope of any individual fire officer. Still, if the system is not working, it is the duty of an officer to say so and to be engaged in making it better. In the meantime, it is not enough to say, “Oh well, the system stinks; therefore, performance evaluations don’t really matter.” Even within a poorly designed system, officers can and should provide clear feedback to those they work with. Such feedback can be informal and even nonverbal at times, but when a formal performance evaluation is done, the assessment must be in writing and validated with examples from the workplace.
Although it might seem easier to just go through the motions, rate everyone as “good,” and forget about performance evaluations the rest of the time, such an approach can have dire consequences. Ignoring the opportunity to give real feedback diminishes the possibility that problems will be solved. What happens 10 or 15 years down the line when the employee who really isn’t performing adequately (and probably should have been terminated right after probation) is finally held accountable for bad, or in some cases even dangerous, performance? That employee pulls out a decade’s worth of performance evaluations, some with your signature, saying that the employee’s performance was perfectly good, with no defined need of improvement.•••
Doing good performance evaluations is one of the most difficult and stressful aspects of any supervisor’s job, and many organizations have invested little in making the system work better through training or support. However, giving honest, validated feedback to others and helping them improve in specific aspects of their performance are also two of the most important aspects of any supervisor’s job. Making a commitment to doing good performance evaluations is a mark of true leadership, and those who work with you will thank you for it.
Reference
London, Manual. Job Feedback: Giving, Seeking, and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
●LINDA F. WILLING is a retired fire officer with the Boulder (CO) Fire Department and the principal consultant and trainer for RealWorld Training and Consulting. She is an adjunct faculty member of the National Fire Academy in the Executive Fire Officer Program. Willing has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in management from Regis University in Denver.
