5 Steps to Measuring Your Employees' Performance

Measuring and tracking your workers job performance is essential to any company's success. As Info Entrepreneurs says, "A growing business needs to be closely and carefully managed to ensure the success of new investment decisions and expansion plans."

While there are many ways to measuring success with job performance, it is crucial to realize that every one is different. Therefore, some methods may work better than others on certain personalities.

Below are five general steps to measure and evaluate your employees' job performance:

1. Find What to Track - First, make a list of what you feel is important to evaluate in an employee in terms of performance that directly ties to the success of your team and your company. Discuss this with your entire management to make sure you are covering all the important aspects of an evaluation.
2. Establish a Metric - Now go through the list and rank the importance of each item. Then establish a scoring system to calculate the ratings of each item. Depending on your business, you may have to create separate lists for separate departments. These lists then essentially becomes your evaluation forms for your employees.
3. Develop a Process - Once you've finalized your form(s), establish a set process as to how you are going to evaluate your workers. Figure out when you're going to do an evaluation, how often, what happens when someone falls below the average score, how are you going to deliver the results to your employees, is there an incentive program to motivate your workers to perform better next time...etc. There are many software systems that can help you manage these processes.
4. Set Expectations - After you have the measurement and tracking system in place, set up a meeting with your entire staff and go over point-by-point what this new evaluation is. Be sure to explain to them why you are doing this, how this system makes the team and company better, and what your expectations are from your employees. Be specific!
5. Evaluate on a Regular Basis - As Brian Sutter, the director of marketing at Wasp Barcode, says, "You need to be measuring and tracking each employee’s work performance. This doesn’t mean every six months or so. In fact, it’s recommended to continuously keep tabs on employee performance throughout the year." In addition to evaluating your employees, you should constantly assess and re-assess your procedures to see if you can make your operations more effective and efficient.