Evaluating co-workers

With hospitality and food cost being a major focus we need to think about co-worker evaluations. Co-worker evaluations are important to help managers accomplish their goals. It is very important that all employees understand what the stores goals are (food cost, mystery shops, health inspections) and what part they play in reaching that goal. Co- worker evaluations should take place daily. I have found Monday through Thursday is the best time. Maybe one or two a day. One idea to keep up with co-worker evaluations on a monthly basis is to keep a calendar in the office. You can write the co-workers name by the date you administered his/her evaluation. Then 30 days from that date you write in “follow up” eval. By using a calendar you do not have to memorize when you administer an evaluation or when you need to follow-up. You might want to leave this calendar in the office visible to other managers, so they can see who has received an evaluation and when their follow up date is.



Important points in doing regular evaluations are goals. You should always have 3 attainable goals for the co-worker to accomplish within a 30 day period or their next evaluation. Try not to give the co-worker more than 5 goals because it might be unattainable to reach in a 30 day period. Use the S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, attainable, and timely) method when coming up with the co-workers goals.



Understand nobody is perfect. When doing evaluations you want to avoid a “perfect” evaluation. By telling a co-worker they are perfect you are not allowing them any growth to improve, and sometimes your end result is an overpaid, non-performing employee. If you have employees coming to you for a raise, and you immediately run to the evaluation form this is not a good sign. Usually this means the co-worker does not know where he/she stands. Co workers should know where they stand all the time. I have witnessed in the past, managers only administering evaluations when co-workers ask for a raise. Evaluations do not have to be administered just to give a raise. Evaluations should be done to let the employee know what they do well and where they need to improve.





It’s always a good idea to ask the co-worker how they feel about their goals. You want “buy in” from the co-worker that these goals are realistic and can be accomplished in the time frame that you are expecting.



By not performing regular evaluations you are cheating yourself from higher performance. You are also limiting your co-workers performance and faith in you as a leader. You want your co-workers to know you care for their development and future with the company.