Employee Evaluations

Is there a greater annoyance that having to complete employee evaluations? A greater bane to one’s existence? There probably is, but at the moment here we are…

I know it’s just as painful to the manager as it is to the employee, I’ve been on the other side and had to complete employee reviews, not fun. And when you look at it from the manager’s point of view, it has to be worse. Think about it, you have a group of people that report to you, in terms of reviews, one or two if you’re lucky, 7-15 or more if you’re not.

You have to track them all down to complete their reviews if they haven’t [are you sensing where I am right now? And no, I am not the manager] and then once they are complete, you have to read each one and comment on them, that could be pages and pages that you have to deal with. You have to tell your employee that although they are doing a good job, it’s either just not good enough or as good as they think they are, that the outstanding they think they deserve, which they are great… just not quite there or where they could use some improvement and risk hurting someone’s feelings if they think you’re out of your mind with your opinions.

Then you have to have a sit down with each one and discuss what you think and what they think and what’s in the review and possibly watch them stew and steam and sit there cross armed while they wait for you to finish. And you have to be so delicate in how you approach them so as to not set of someone who is potentially postal [no, NOT ME!]

So, here I sit trying to avoid, I suppose, completing my evaluation which was due a few weeks ago, but really needs to get done. But… I did find out that no one in my group has done theirs, so even though I feel bad, I don’t, if that makes sense. Who are we kidding, those of you who know me, know I feel guilty! It’s hard, you have to do your job and the evaluation and you say, “I’m going to set aside this time to work on it” then it’s a week later…

Now, in my defense I actually worked on it about a week ago, then all of a sudden, it’s gone, of course an IT can’t help me, so I have to start all over, oh well…

So, here I sit, writing to/for you while I should be working on my employee review… ok, I’m going to work on it, wish me luck!

[ps for the record, I wrote this while I was sitting in the airport with no internet connection [well, no free internet connection] so, technically, it was the Thursday post 🙂  ]