Off the Cuff: Evaluating and Compensating Production Employees, Part III

The issues an employee review must address boils down to answering the seven key questions an employee will want and need to know about his performance.
Feb 4, 2008

By Mark L. Venit, MBA

In the previous installment of this series, we explored implementing an Employee Review System that you can use to evaluate employee performance. Let’s turn now to scheduling employee interviews and what specific issues you should address.

Review Scheduling
Creating a meaningful employee review system means having a game plan about how it’s going to work and what will be asked of and told to employees. It also means having a basic understanding of fairness and professionalism. When should evaluations be conducted? My recommendation is decidedly quarterly.

Once a year is too long and unfair to the employee. Set a quarterly timetable and keep to it (e.g., the first week of the quarter, the mid-point, etc.). It should take no more than 15 minutes, though there’ll be appropriate exceptions.

Given the limited time allotted, reviews should be done on company time, on company premises and one-on-one in private. The employee is entitled to confidentiality except for the fact that the evaluation will be placed in his personnel file for future reference.

Clearly state that the purposes of the review are 1) to convey information, 2) facilitate communications between employer and employee, and 3) give the employee a progress report that in the eyes of management details his/her performance and employment status.

Emphasize that while employee evaluation scores are certainly an important component of assessing a wage rate, the review, itself, is not what management considers as the proper time and place for awarding raises. Explain that future raises will be based on skill levels, skill tests, length of service, the degree of compliance with company policies and any other company-specific criteria.

The “Seven Questions”
If an employee could plan for the review and figure out what he/she wants to know about his/her performance and status, here are the seven telling questions he/she would articulate:

 1. How am I doing?
 2. What must I do to improve my behavior or performance?
 3. Do I have a chance for advancement? (Though not everyone is interested in this).
 4. How will I be helped to improve?
 5. What changes in the company or in the business climate are likely and how will I be affected?
 6. What is expected of me by my next review?
 7. By what criteria will my performance be evaluated?

The correct answers to Questions 1 through 6 are simply the truth, as explained by the manager conducting the review.

The answer to No. 7 is vis-à-vis the establishment of a system of skill levels classifying each employee as a Level 1 Screen Printer or Embroiderer, Level 2 Screen Printer or Embroiderer, Level 3 Screen Printer or Embroiderer, and so forth.

In Part IV, which will appear in the Feb. 19, 2008, edition of the Impressions Newsletter, we'll look at how to create a compensation system that's based primarily on skills.
 
Mark L. Venit, MBA, is president of Apparel Graphics Institute Ltd., Ocean Pines, Md., which provides management and marketing consulting and proprietary research to apparel graphics companies throughout the Americas and Europe. He is also the chairman of ShopWorks Software LLC, a provider of industry-specific business software. Venit teaches pricing, strategic marketing, salesmanship and other business management topics at the Imprinted Sportswear Shows. You can reach him at markvenit@cs.com.

Click here to read "Evaluating and Compensating Production Employees, Part I."


Click here to read "Evaluating and Compensating Production Employees, Part II."