Employee evaluations: addressing fear and improving fairness

¶ … third one have several parts. The first question asks why some staff members may fear evaluation. The second question asks whether the evaluation process can be made less threatening and foreboding. Finally, a series of three questions is asked about the agency that the author of this paper works at.

Fear of Evaluations

There are a number of reasons why people are fearful of evaluations in general and/or of the process itself. The first main reason is fear that the process is somehow broken or intentionally rigged. If employees get the feeling that the evaluations are a rubber stamp, are done in an incomplete and/or unfair way and/or that the manager(s) in question have a bias against the employee (rightly or wrongly), the recipients of the evaluations may feel that the evaluation is not indicative of reality and/or that the evaluation will be used against them (Lewis, Packard & Lewis, 2007).

Other still may dislike the process because it pits people against one another in several ways. For example, prior evaluations (and how they compare to that of other applicants) is a big part of who is promoted and why. If the results are deemed to be invalid or less than genuine, it will suggest (again, rightly or wrongly) to the person perceiving the process that the entire system is not fair and/or is positioned against their favor (Lewis, Packard & Lewis, 2007).

In short, if either the process/system of evaluations or the evaluation as administered to a person is deemed to be unfair or otherwise biased, the employee(s) that hold this perception will resist and/or fear the evaluation and this will actually tend to make things worse for the employee unless it is clear to the reviewer or manager that this is the problem.

How to Make Evaluations Less Threatening

There are two primary tactics that can and should be used to mitigate and reduce the fears of the people and departments who receive the evaluations, and those two dimensions are transparency and constructiveness. The process whereby employees are evaluated should be discussed and explained before, during and after the process has executed for a different cycle. The managers and arbiters of the process should not let the employees run or mold the program, but employees can and should be encouraged to offer their feedback and explain how they perceive the process and why. If the concerns are not valid, it can be explained why they are not valid and if there is indeed a problem, even if it's an aesthetic/perception matter only, it can be addressed easily (Lewis, Packard & Lewis, 2007).

As for keeping constructive, the evaluation process should not be viewed (or used) as a punishment tool and absolutely anything that can be done to avoid that becoming the way it is looked at should be avoided at all costs. Managers (and it really should be the person's manager giving the evaluation, not ANYONE else and certainly not a third party) should be constructive as possible. They should be gentle and positive in what they explain but they should be thorough as to what is perceived to be wrong, actual examples/events that prove that it's not a false review and what exactly the employee can and should do to change performances and perception (Lewis, Packard & Lewis, 2007).

Conclusion

In conclusion, agencies must evaluation themselves and their employees in the proper way so as to make sure that performance and outcomes are garnered in an efficient and measured way. To not know the true state of an agency's position and/or to not know who the best and brightest contributors are (or at least not having that in writing, which is a whole different paper) is truly dangerous and, at the very least, sloppy. The people doing the measuring as well as the tools used to do the measuring must all be top-notch and exceedingly valid/reliable for them, and any ensuing results, to be taken seriously.