How to Perform an Effective Interim Evaluation
Interim evaluations, also known as “quick” or “engagement” evaluations, are a critical part of providing feedback to staff members in the modern professional services environment. These evaluations create an opportunity to provide praise and feedback outside an annual performance review, and can be completed every completed engagement or just after a certain number of hours spent on one engagement or with one manager. For the first few years of their career, new professionals will thrive or struggle based on the quality and timeliness of these evaluations. As someone who has had to write many of these evaluations, I’m going to share the method I use to make my evaluations as effective as possible.
Common Mistakes
Before I jump into my own strategy for writing evaluations, I need to point out the common mistakes that I see in these quick evaluations so you can better understand why I take my approach. Here are some of the common issues I see and hear about when it comes to evaluations:
Too Short or Too Long - Many managers fall into the pattern of having evaluations that are too short when the person being evaluated does well. This occurs because the manager does not see the need for any constructive feedback if the person did a great job. Additionally, some managers will write out paragraphs detailing every little mistake that can be improved upon, making the evaluation too lengthy to properly process.
Not Timely - The length of the feedback is not the only thing that determines how effective the evaluation will be, it is also important that the feedback is delivered in a timely manner. No one wants to hear what they did good or badly eight weeks ago because at that point it is hard to recall what exactly happened.
No Input from the Evaluatee - Perspective is important and providing someone feedback without first understanding their perspective is an easy way to have your comments misinterpreted or ignored. I have seen many evaluations simply signed off and thrown away because the person thought the evaluator was full of crap and did not understand what was going on, which can be true more often than you might think.
Once I noticed these common mistakes, I started to conduct my own evaluations differently so they could be more valuable to my staff.
My Method
Step 1 - Collect Information - Before writing the evaluation, I start by collecting information about the person’s performance on the job we are working on. I typically look for 2-3 areas where they are doing well and 2-3 areas where they can improve. Like many firms, my firm has a 1-5 scale to evaluate employees in a few key areas that is attached to each evaluation. I make sure I have an idea of where the person would fit on this scale as well before moving on to the next step. It’s important to develop my own perspective first so I understand how the person being evaluated can get feedback on how they are perceived if needed.
Step 2 - Have a Conversation - I outlined why having a conversation is important in a separate blog, and for those reasons, I make sure to have a verbal conversation (if possible) when writing these evaluations. Having a conversation allows me the opportunity to gain the evaluatee’s perspective on everything that went on during the engagement, which is a tremendous help when picking what areas are most important to discuss further. As I noted in the other blog post, having a conversation is a great way to convey feedback that may not be effectively communicated in writing, such as quick tips or one-off items that require a bit more context.
Step 3 - Work with the Evaluatee to Create the Feedback - I start this step by asking the evaluatee to tell me one (and only one) thing they did well on the engagement and one (and only one) thing that they think they can improve on. By doing this, they are showing me where their thoughts are and what is most important to them. I then follow and offer my thoughts in the same pattern: one area where they did well, and one area of improvement. After some more conversation, we determine which areas are important enough to write down in the evaluation. This way, the evaluator and the evaluatee can agree on the most important feedback and minimize any miscommunications or misunderstandings.
Step 4 - Finalize the Evaluation - Once all the other steps are done, all there is left to do is to finalize the evaluation in the HR system.
Why Do It This Way?
I developed these steps to make the evaluation process easier for me and to ensure that my staff get the most benefit from the evaluation process as possible. By having a conversation with them, I can get more information and a better perspective of what is going on, which addresses the common mistake of leaving an evaluation without any input from the evaluatee. By only choosing one point of praise and one point of improvement, we can create more actionable feedback (instead of a list of 10 different corrections) and ensure more specific positive reinforcement for things that are done well. This method is easier for both parties and makes the process more enjoyable, which ends up leading to timelier and directed feedback since both the evaluator and evaluatee need to remember and agree on what gets written up. Ultimately, the combination of all these steps leads to a more engaged staff member that has more input and insight into their evaluation, which empowers them to take better action to reinforce what they are doing well, and to make pointed improvements to shore up their weaker areas. I can confidently say that this method has proven to be very effective in my experience and I hope that it works for you too!