Human Resources 101

Good coaching is training your employees to do the job right every time. Here’s how to maximize your coaching skills:

Coach all the time. Coaching is an ongoing process. You should be coaching employees all the time—even when their performance is good.
Don’t micro-manage. You don’t have to jump in at the first sign of every or any problem. Give employees […]

Here are some guidelines to conducting effective employee appraisals. The annual appraisal will always be more effective if it is part of an on-going coaching process.
Meeting Set Up

Allow adequate time to complete the review
Put the employee at ease and eliminate distractions. Don’t check your Blackberry during the meeting!
Explain you are there to provide […]

Change what people do, not who they are. Focus on the behavior when asking for change. Avoid personal attacks.
Listen before talking, and think before acting. Before you criticize or try to control co-workers’ behavior, make sure you understand what they’re doing and why. Think the situation through and choose your words carefully. Don’t say something […]

Employee reviews should benefit both the employer and the employee. Here’s how to make the most of them. Conducting Employee Reviews - Entrepreneur.com

Performance appraisal or assessment interviews allow you to do the following:

Re-cap positive and negative events, interactions, attitudes and productivity during the past evaluation period;
Assess individual and team strengths, limitations and obstacles;
Identify opportunities for […]

Michael Fitzgibbon addresses a couple of common performance-management questions, “How do you decide whether to go down the path of performance management?  At the end of it, we’ll probably have to put a package together anyway, so why bother?“
He suggests a couple of questions you must ask before you can start a performance management program with […]

Towers Perrin Press Release:
Results Show Rewards and Performance Management Seldom in Line With Business Strategy and Viewed as Less Than Effective in Meeting Business NeedsSTAMFORD, CT, September 5, 2007 — Reward and performance management programs are not keeping pace with the demands facing businesses today, says a new Towers Perrin study. Despite enormous shifts in […]

Effective performance management takes place daily. Managers don’t wait for an annual meeting, but observe their employee’s performance and provide immediate feedback. Besides better motivating the employee and/or allowing the employee to address required improvements immediately, it eliminates the chance of any surprises during the formal review sessions.
To facilitate conducting the formal performance appraisal, supervisors should keep […]

Performance reviews are about as much fun as a root canal without any anaesthetic. Employees don’t like getting reviewed and managers resist reviewing. In addition, there is debate within the business community as to whether performance reviews are even effective.
Personally, I’m not convinced of the effectiveness of performance reviews as part of the wage and salary process, […]

OfficeTeam’s latest survey shows, about 1/3 of companies ineffective at rewarding good performance.
Workers who feel their good work often goes unnoticed may have a case. More than one-third (35 percent) of professionals polled recently said businesses are ineffective at rewarding their employees’ strong performance. Thirty percent of managers surveyed agreed.
The OfficeTeam article goes on to […]

Robert Half Finance and Accounting offers a variety of information and free resources to help employers make informed, strategic hiring decisions. This is a sales tool. The form asks for a phone call or number so they can make a pitch to you. If you don’t mind the pitch, there’s some helpful information in these booklets.

2007 […]