3 Reasons Why You Need an Effective Staff Evaluation Process

How and when to give staff members feedback on their performance is a much-discussed topic among auxiliary professionals. SPARC's recent roundtable highlighted many of the challenges that come with critiquing staff performance, including how formal the process should be, how often, and what to do when encountering resistance. Some directors join programs that have an evaluation process in place, while others find their staff have never received structured feedback, meaning they must build the process from scratch.

Establishing this process is crucial to the healthy functioning of your team, and it can be as simple or as comprehensive as you need for your particular program. What's most important is to build the expectation of feedback into your program's culture and to emphasize the positives of evaluating performance.

Here are three great reasons to get started on building a feedback process within your organization.

1. It Creates Opportunities for Setting Goals and Expectations

The beginning of summer or the school year is a great time to establish not only your expectations for staff members, but to discuss what goals they'd like to meet by the end of the season. When you do one-one-one check-ins, you'll have a reference for offering feedback about how well each staff member is meeting expectations and what challenges they may be facing in meeting their goals.

Formalizing the process in this way makes your job a little easier by depersonalizing constructive feedback. Having established standards to refer to lessens resistance and defensiveness from staff and creates space for them to discuss any difficulties. And you can ask what you can do to help them meet expectations before it's too late in the season (but remember to always keep the focus on your employee's performance, not yours).

Tip: For practical advice on how to approach employees with feedback, prevent defensiveness, and build a culture where feedback is welcome, watch Maggie Magner's excellent webinar "Demystifying Feedback."

2. It Helps Build Trust and Rapport

Think of feedback as a tool for strengthening relationships with your staff members. This is especially true when getting to know new hires or when you are the new person on the job. These initial conversations are an effective way to begin to establish trust--a crucial element of the feedback process.

Feedback is also an opportunity for you to listen to staff members stating their goals, challenges, or ideas for program improvement. Giving them a voice as individuals--and as a team--helps them to feel that they matter, which makes them want to do their best work. This goes a long way to building a culture of trust and respect where feedback is welcome as a positive force that helps everyone improve and create the best program possible.

Tip: Empower your staff to provide feedback to those they supervise without needing your intervention unless absolutely necessary. Staff autonomy strengthens their leaderships skills and development while easing your workday load. Use the 4 Question Ritual to train staff on how to solve problems on their own.

3. It Lets Everyone Know Where They Stand

By the end of the season, everyone should know if they will be invited back or possibly offered a different position. But to prevent any surprises, one-on-one check-ins are an effective way to communicate where staff members stand while the season is ongoing. This allows for staff who shine to know they have a place next season before they begin looking around for other opportunities. And it can help ease that exit interview with someone who isn't quite right for the job--it's less likely to come as a surprise. 

Tip: For even more information, check out SPARC's roundtable, "Staff Hiring, Onboarding, Training, and Evaluations."

Looking for information, skill development, and support for managing your auxiliary staff? Join SPARC today and gain access to valuable tools, videos, networking opportunities, and more!