March 23, 2010 marked the beginning of health care reform with the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The short- and long-term cost implications for employers stretch a far as 2018 and it is important for employers to prepare for reform in order to avoid costly “surprises” later on. Some health care reform provisions have already begun. The PPACA will require changes in many company’s health benefits, accounting systems, as well as reporting, controls and compliance systems.
According to Deloitte CFO Insight, due to “PPACA’s complexity, the need for regulation, and the lengthy design/cost planning cycles…. employers should begin working on their health reform now—2010!” It will be necessary for organizations to adjust accounting and disclosure practices. They will also be expected to collaborate with human resources in order to successfully and cost-effectively transition and comply with the new health care regulations. Communication with employees is also vital and can greatly impact the structure of plans the company offers in later years.
The PPACA timeline effectively began as early as June of this year (2010). A temporary $5 billion federal reinsurance pool specifically reserved for pre-65 retirees was created. The June regulations also forces employers to apply for coverage. This pool expires in 2014 or when the allocation is exhausted, further stressing the need to be aware of PPACAs timeline. This PPACA provision has potential financial benefits for employers as it provides medical benefits for early retirees. This is just one example of the many reform provisions which will continue as far as 2018.
It is vital for employers in both large and small organizations to know the timeline of the PPACAs regulations. In order to minimize the potential financial impact, click here for the full report form Deloitte CFO Insight for timeline and resulting implications. Do not stall in initiating the necessary changes. If employers do not begin initiating change now, their transitions will be rushed, ineffective, and costly. It is central for companies that a smooth transition takes place in these upcoming years of employer health care reform.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
HIRE Act Employee Affidavit Form (W-11) Now Available
The IRS just posted a new form--W-11, Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act Employee Affidavit--along with answers to frequently-asked questions about the HIRE Act.
Under the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, enacted March 18, 2010, two new tax benefits are available to employers who hire certain previously unemployed workers (“qualified employees”).
The first, referred to as the payroll tax exemption, provides employers with an exemption from the employer’s 6.2 percent share of social security tax on wages paid to qualifying employees, effective for wages paid from March 19, 2010 through December 31, 2010.
In addition, for each qualified employee retained for at least 52 consecutive weeks, businesses will also be eligible for a general business tax credit, referred to as the new hire retention credit, of 6.2 percent of wages paid to the qualified employee over the 52 week period, up to a maximum credit of $1,000.
The IRS explained in an alert issued on 4/7/2010 that the new law requires "employers get a statement from each eligible new hire, certifying under penalties of perjury, that he or she was unemployed during the 60 days before beginning work or, alternatively, worked fewer than a total of 40 hours for anyone during the 60-day period. Employers can use Form W-11 to meet this requirement."
Under the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act, enacted March 18, 2010, two new tax benefits are available to employers who hire certain previously unemployed workers (“qualified employees”).
The first, referred to as the payroll tax exemption, provides employers with an exemption from the employer’s 6.2 percent share of social security tax on wages paid to qualifying employees, effective for wages paid from March 19, 2010 through December 31, 2010.
In addition, for each qualified employee retained for at least 52 consecutive weeks, businesses will also be eligible for a general business tax credit, referred to as the new hire retention credit, of 6.2 percent of wages paid to the qualified employee over the 52 week period, up to a maximum credit of $1,000.
The IRS explained in an alert issued on 4/7/2010 that the new law requires "employers get a statement from each eligible new hire, certifying under penalties of perjury, that he or she was unemployed during the 60 days before beginning work or, alternatively, worked fewer than a total of 40 hours for anyone during the 60-day period. Employers can use Form W-11 to meet this requirement."
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Surviving and Thriving in this economy
An economist admitted,
The amazing central issue about this economy is that the economists blame it on the mortgage crisis, the cost of fuel, and the banking collapse. The rest of us know that the real challenge was a long decaying job market and a shift to a service economy from a production economy. Simply put, we need to put people to work. We need to increase productivity. We need to start by increasing the productivity of our current work force and as production increases and prices become competitive, demand will follow and we will need more people to produce. We cannot rely on the bailout and a recovered economy. We need to make our own economy; our own economy for our company, our city, and eventually our state. From there it will spread across the country and around the world.
Sounds lofty, but I believe that each of us can be the catalyst to get the economy in motion. Where do we start? How about with a new paradigm and some new rules? Let’s start with a new paradigm.
Business is not a family and business management is not a bunch of mommies and daddies. If you have this attitude, you are destroying your company. You do not exist to take care of your employees. Your employees exist to take care of the company and in turn the company exists to take care of the all important Customers. Essentially, your employees protect you and the other assets of your organization. Business should be more like a professional sports team. The scoreboard is the Profit and Loss Statement and the players are your employees. If you watch professional sports, you see each year players being let go because they can no longer play their position effectively. This does not mean the coach and the players suffer damage in their relationship. Everyone knows on a professional team, you perform or parish. That is the paradigm that every existing player on your team and every potential player on your team must understand.
You are their coach. Your job is to set strategy, ensure the best players are on the field and ensure each is educated and empowered to perform their job to the best of their ability, which should be the best in their field. If you have been living under the “Family” paradigm, you need a transformation to survive in this economy. You can’t be the mommy or daddy that will save your family. You need players on your team that will step up to not only survive, but to thrive in this economy.
It is not a matter of giving them power to make decision. It is a matter of making them make decisions. If they are incapable of making good decisions at their level AND yours, you need to look for replacements. Ouch, you say, that hurts! You know what hurts worse? Having to close your doors and lay them ALL off. The weak bring down the strong on a team. Just watch professional sports and you will see firsthand how the poor play of one individual helps the other team score. Without empowering the employees, any business will be limited to the abilities of the decision makers and not be able to grow any further. By allowing the weak to stay, your strongest player will not be able to play to the best of their ability and your whole team will suffer.
If you want a winning team you need to make winning decisions. No one said they would be easy. To shift your company from a management philosophy to a coaching philosophy, you will need some new rules. And here they are….
I am going to share with you 5 rules for coaching your staff to a new level of productivity. They will be controversial. You will most likely not hear another HR professional share these concepts as they go against “Business is a Family” paradigm.
1. To hire the best you have to test!
You have to test for competency and skills that relate to the job. You have to test for a perfect fit into the team. You have to test for decision making skills. You have to test for interpersonal relationship development skills. And you have to test for flexibility, stability, reliability and most importantly work ethics. To become a member on your elite team, candidates will be put through the wringer. To hire the best, you will probably interview 100 people to fill a single slot. By taking the time to hire the best you actually reduce costs over time. The benefit of hiring the best is that you will have employees who are pragmatic, practiced, practical, loyal, reliable and strong decision makers. I know it seems logical. However, as an HR professional, I find myself solving challenges, almost daily, that are caused because companies ignore this basic first rule.
Many people are hired because the hiring manager “likes them better” or “knows them as friend”, or because hiring a particular person is politically advantageous. Or an even better one: “He walked in when the job becomes open. These reasons are all wrong.
When you don’t hire the best, you will have counter-productive behaviors, accidents, injuries, increased customer complaints, lost customers, decreasing revenues and even law suits.
2. Overpay Them - Superstars are paid more than the Coach!
As an HR professional, I know how challenging it is these days for organizations when they try to balance the costs of salary increases with the need to recognize employees’ performance. Like many of you, I have faced the challenge of getting caught in the middle and feeling like the two sides of the issue are mutually exclusive. The fact is they don’t have to be.
We all agree that if labor costs are too high, it will impede on your organization’s financial health. The rising costs of labor, especially in the U.S. is a major concern to organizations that find it more and more difficult to earn the margins that were achieved in prior years – not to mention the fact that customers are looking for deals and that means lower prices. There are other means to compensate or pay the employees other than base pay.
You may have heard of Non-Monetary Compensation and Pay for Performance Program Options.
Non-Monetary Compensation options include flex time, tele-commute, discount – gym, food, drinks, casual Fridays, company picnic, party or camping. I once setup a one-night company camping event for a client. For very minimum cost, the employees and their families love it so much, they didn’t stop talking about it for months. It was so successful that they did it again the next few years.
Pay for Performance Programs include profit sharing, gain sharing, business unit bonuses, performance bonuses, retention bonuses and other discretionary bonuses. Many organizations already have or have used some type of pay for performance programs. In this economy, they can be cost effective tools for accomplishing retention and recognition. The added benefit of pay for performance programs is that they can be more directly tied to corporate performance objectives and only be paid out if corporate goals are achieved. I have watched organizations struggle with how to provide base salary increases to employees in a way that can be directly correlated to business performance. But, things get in the way. Factors such as inflation, crucial importance of skills, or compression from new hires can all impede a performance-based pay program.
Pay for performance programs, on the other hand, can be more directly tied to some aspect of corporate performance such as profit, revenue, or labor efficiencies. They can also offset the negative response that your top performers may have after receiving a “small” salary increase.
As you seek to grow your business and keep your top performers engaged and loyal, here are some things to be aware of implementing any pay for performance program.
Two is be FAIR. It is also important to make sure that managers are adequately managing any employee performance issues. If you leave any employees out, you must have a defensible reason to do so including non-discriminatory practices.
Three is your pay for performance program must have STAR quality. (Specific, Timely, Achievable and Realized by all employees.) Each employee must be able to see the targets and understand how they can impact them. This way the managers are free to be coaches because every team members are keeping an eye on the business and other team members. Slackers either keep up or they will be spot lighted by everyone else on your team.
Four: No “Nasty Surprises” goes both ways. You must have a good communication plan. Employees are going to want to know how things are going on a regular basis. Acting with integrity from the top to the bottom of the organization and transparency are critical. Make sure that checks and balances are in place so that appropriate records are kept and there is good oversight.
Finally, don’t forget to change them up every two to three years to avoid the “entitlement” effect that can occur with long-standing bonus programs. Look at AIG…
AIG is to me an example of what can go wrong with bonuses that become part of base pay. Regardless of what you may have heard about AIG’s “performance bonuses,” I have a hard time accepting the concept that employees who supposedly performed so well had to have the government essentially buy 80% of the company. Not only was it hard to choke down the first time we heard about it as taxpayers and employers, now we find out they are given quarterly! If you think of this as an employer, it may aggravates you so much as to lose one of the tools you can use to legitimately to encourage higher employee performance levels.
Using a pay for performance compensation strategy to recognize organization and employee performance not only can have a positive effect on your employees, but it will also be well received by your executives and shareholders, since it requires that the organization achieves its stated financial and business goals first!
3. Two Nasty Surprises – Terminate Them!
That’s harsh!! You say, even in Baseball you get three strikes before you are out! But Nasty surprises are not just mistakes! We are talking about hiding the mistakes until they grew into catastrophic proportion. As I remember from my favorite movie “Meet the Robinsons” - “from mistakes you learn” and “keep moving forward”. When your employees take on more responsibilities and act on their decisions, they will make more mistakes. As their coach, it is your responsibilities to show them how and let them try.
For this rules to work, it is imperative that management live and breathe open door policy. Employees must feel safe to come to management when they make mistakes. Not to create a risk adverse environment. If you have a risk adverse environment, get rid of it! Those who are not honest about their mistakes or continuously fail to learn from them, they must be removed from the team as soon as possible.
MBWA or Management By Wondering Around is another tool to help create that coaching paradigm. A concept introduced by Tom Peters in his 1st best seller “In Search of Excellence” over 20 years ago. It is still as relevant and as powerful today. MBWA does not mean leaving your responsibilities behind as you stroll through the nearest shopping mall. However, even wandering through your organization can do more harm than good if it isn't executed properly. You want to listen to your employees and remember to get back to them, even if you don’t have an answer or can’t do anything. It does wonders to establish that trust relationship.
Another excellent way to improve communication and educate your employees is the Skip Level Meetings. Skip Level Meetings are regularly scheduled meetings between a boss and his/her directs’ directs. Directs’ directs are called Skips and Skip Level Meetings have 2 purposes. One is to allow the senior manager to communicate deeper within the organization and two is to allow Skips to ask questions. The in-between managers are not present during these meetings. A good Skip Level Meeting is scheduled and followed a specific agenda.
4. and 5. Don’t Fall in Love with Them and Don’t Treat Them Like Children
Don’t keep someone on you team just because you really like them. They may have the greatest personality but you have to let them go if they can’t produce results. Once again, Business is not a family and business managers are not mommies and daddies. If you treat your employees like children, management will work themselves to oblivion and employees will come to rely on management to make every decisions and basically – to take care of them. Like a professional sport team, managements are empowered as coaches and employees are empowered as sport professionals. Remember in a professional sport team, every player knows their position and how their play will affect the whole game. Most importantly, everyone knows low performer will be removed from the play and the team.
“Economists are often wrong, but never in doubt.”
The amazing central issue about this economy is that the economists blame it on the mortgage crisis, the cost of fuel, and the banking collapse. The rest of us know that the real challenge was a long decaying job market and a shift to a service economy from a production economy. Simply put, we need to put people to work. We need to increase productivity. We need to start by increasing the productivity of our current work force and as production increases and prices become competitive, demand will follow and we will need more people to produce. We cannot rely on the bailout and a recovered economy. We need to make our own economy; our own economy for our company, our city, and eventually our state. From there it will spread across the country and around the world.
Sounds lofty, but I believe that each of us can be the catalyst to get the economy in motion. Where do we start? How about with a new paradigm and some new rules? Let’s start with a new paradigm.
Business is not a family and business management is not a bunch of mommies and daddies. If you have this attitude, you are destroying your company. You do not exist to take care of your employees. Your employees exist to take care of the company and in turn the company exists to take care of the all important Customers. Essentially, your employees protect you and the other assets of your organization. Business should be more like a professional sports team. The scoreboard is the Profit and Loss Statement and the players are your employees. If you watch professional sports, you see each year players being let go because they can no longer play their position effectively. This does not mean the coach and the players suffer damage in their relationship. Everyone knows on a professional team, you perform or parish. That is the paradigm that every existing player on your team and every potential player on your team must understand.
You are their coach. Your job is to set strategy, ensure the best players are on the field and ensure each is educated and empowered to perform their job to the best of their ability, which should be the best in their field. If you have been living under the “Family” paradigm, you need a transformation to survive in this economy. You can’t be the mommy or daddy that will save your family. You need players on your team that will step up to not only survive, but to thrive in this economy.
It is not a matter of giving them power to make decision. It is a matter of making them make decisions. If they are incapable of making good decisions at their level AND yours, you need to look for replacements. Ouch, you say, that hurts! You know what hurts worse? Having to close your doors and lay them ALL off. The weak bring down the strong on a team. Just watch professional sports and you will see firsthand how the poor play of one individual helps the other team score. Without empowering the employees, any business will be limited to the abilities of the decision makers and not be able to grow any further. By allowing the weak to stay, your strongest player will not be able to play to the best of their ability and your whole team will suffer.
If you want a winning team you need to make winning decisions. No one said they would be easy. To shift your company from a management philosophy to a coaching philosophy, you will need some new rules. And here they are….
I am going to share with you 5 rules for coaching your staff to a new level of productivity. They will be controversial. You will most likely not hear another HR professional share these concepts as they go against “Business is a Family” paradigm.
- Hire the Best
- Overpay them
- Two Nasty Surprises – Terminate Them
- Don’t Fall in Love with Them
- Don’t Treat Them Like Children
1. To hire the best you have to test!
You have to test for competency and skills that relate to the job. You have to test for a perfect fit into the team. You have to test for decision making skills. You have to test for interpersonal relationship development skills. And you have to test for flexibility, stability, reliability and most importantly work ethics. To become a member on your elite team, candidates will be put through the wringer. To hire the best, you will probably interview 100 people to fill a single slot. By taking the time to hire the best you actually reduce costs over time. The benefit of hiring the best is that you will have employees who are pragmatic, practiced, practical, loyal, reliable and strong decision makers. I know it seems logical. However, as an HR professional, I find myself solving challenges, almost daily, that are caused because companies ignore this basic first rule.
Many people are hired because the hiring manager “likes them better” or “knows them as friend”, or because hiring a particular person is politically advantageous. Or an even better one: “He walked in when the job becomes open. These reasons are all wrong.
When you don’t hire the best, you will have counter-productive behaviors, accidents, injuries, increased customer complaints, lost customers, decreasing revenues and even law suits.
2. Overpay Them - Superstars are paid more than the Coach!
As an HR professional, I know how challenging it is these days for organizations when they try to balance the costs of salary increases with the need to recognize employees’ performance. Like many of you, I have faced the challenge of getting caught in the middle and feeling like the two sides of the issue are mutually exclusive. The fact is they don’t have to be.
We all agree that if labor costs are too high, it will impede on your organization’s financial health. The rising costs of labor, especially in the U.S. is a major concern to organizations that find it more and more difficult to earn the margins that were achieved in prior years – not to mention the fact that customers are looking for deals and that means lower prices. There are other means to compensate or pay the employees other than base pay.
You may have heard of Non-Monetary Compensation and Pay for Performance Program Options.
Non-Monetary Compensation options include flex time, tele-commute, discount – gym, food, drinks, casual Fridays, company picnic, party or camping. I once setup a one-night company camping event for a client. For very minimum cost, the employees and their families love it so much, they didn’t stop talking about it for months. It was so successful that they did it again the next few years.
Pay for Performance Programs include profit sharing, gain sharing, business unit bonuses, performance bonuses, retention bonuses and other discretionary bonuses. Many organizations already have or have used some type of pay for performance programs. In this economy, they can be cost effective tools for accomplishing retention and recognition. The added benefit of pay for performance programs is that they can be more directly tied to corporate performance objectives and only be paid out if corporate goals are achieved. I have watched organizations struggle with how to provide base salary increases to employees in a way that can be directly correlated to business performance. But, things get in the way. Factors such as inflation, crucial importance of skills, or compression from new hires can all impede a performance-based pay program.
Pay for performance programs, on the other hand, can be more directly tied to some aspect of corporate performance such as profit, revenue, or labor efficiencies. They can also offset the negative response that your top performers may have after receiving a “small” salary increase.
As you seek to grow your business and keep your top performers engaged and loyal, here are some things to be aware of implementing any pay for performance program.
- Be Real
- Be Fair
- STAR
- No Nasty Surprises
- Change Them Up
Two is be FAIR. It is also important to make sure that managers are adequately managing any employee performance issues. If you leave any employees out, you must have a defensible reason to do so including non-discriminatory practices.
Three is your pay for performance program must have STAR quality. (Specific, Timely, Achievable and Realized by all employees.) Each employee must be able to see the targets and understand how they can impact them. This way the managers are free to be coaches because every team members are keeping an eye on the business and other team members. Slackers either keep up or they will be spot lighted by everyone else on your team.
Four: No “Nasty Surprises” goes both ways. You must have a good communication plan. Employees are going to want to know how things are going on a regular basis. Acting with integrity from the top to the bottom of the organization and transparency are critical. Make sure that checks and balances are in place so that appropriate records are kept and there is good oversight.
Remember, superstars get pay more than their coaches.
Finally, don’t forget to change them up every two to three years to avoid the “entitlement” effect that can occur with long-standing bonus programs. Look at AIG…
AIG is to me an example of what can go wrong with bonuses that become part of base pay. Regardless of what you may have heard about AIG’s “performance bonuses,” I have a hard time accepting the concept that employees who supposedly performed so well had to have the government essentially buy 80% of the company. Not only was it hard to choke down the first time we heard about it as taxpayers and employers, now we find out they are given quarterly! If you think of this as an employer, it may aggravates you so much as to lose one of the tools you can use to legitimately to encourage higher employee performance levels.
Using a pay for performance compensation strategy to recognize organization and employee performance not only can have a positive effect on your employees, but it will also be well received by your executives and shareholders, since it requires that the organization achieves its stated financial and business goals first!
3. Two Nasty Surprises – Terminate Them!
That’s harsh!! You say, even in Baseball you get three strikes before you are out! But Nasty surprises are not just mistakes! We are talking about hiding the mistakes until they grew into catastrophic proportion. As I remember from my favorite movie “Meet the Robinsons” - “from mistakes you learn” and “keep moving forward”. When your employees take on more responsibilities and act on their decisions, they will make more mistakes. As their coach, it is your responsibilities to show them how and let them try.
For this rules to work, it is imperative that management live and breathe open door policy. Employees must feel safe to come to management when they make mistakes. Not to create a risk adverse environment. If you have a risk adverse environment, get rid of it! Those who are not honest about their mistakes or continuously fail to learn from them, they must be removed from the team as soon as possible.
MBWA or Management By Wondering Around is another tool to help create that coaching paradigm. A concept introduced by Tom Peters in his 1st best seller “In Search of Excellence” over 20 years ago. It is still as relevant and as powerful today. MBWA does not mean leaving your responsibilities behind as you stroll through the nearest shopping mall. However, even wandering through your organization can do more harm than good if it isn't executed properly. You want to listen to your employees and remember to get back to them, even if you don’t have an answer or can’t do anything. It does wonders to establish that trust relationship.
Another excellent way to improve communication and educate your employees is the Skip Level Meetings. Skip Level Meetings are regularly scheduled meetings between a boss and his/her directs’ directs. Directs’ directs are called Skips and Skip Level Meetings have 2 purposes. One is to allow the senior manager to communicate deeper within the organization and two is to allow Skips to ask questions. The in-between managers are not present during these meetings. A good Skip Level Meeting is scheduled and followed a specific agenda.
4. and 5. Don’t Fall in Love with Them and Don’t Treat Them Like Children
Don’t keep someone on you team just because you really like them. They may have the greatest personality but you have to let them go if they can’t produce results. Once again, Business is not a family and business managers are not mommies and daddies. If you treat your employees like children, management will work themselves to oblivion and employees will come to rely on management to make every decisions and basically – to take care of them. Like a professional sport team, managements are empowered as coaches and employees are empowered as sport professionals. Remember in a professional sport team, every player knows their position and how their play will affect the whole game. Most importantly, everyone knows low performer will be removed from the play and the team.
T.E.E.A.M.
At HRM101 we offer a concept called TEEAM. It stands for Test, Educate, Empower, Audit, and Motivate. You may have noticed that I mentioned part of the TEEAM concept in the coaching paradigms. If you are interested in learning more about how I may assist you and your company to survive and thrive in this economy, you may email me Alexandra@HRM101.com to schedule a free consultation.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Reduce Your Costs - the Furlough
Making tough choices is a big part of running any business, especially during an economic downturn. And no decision is harder to face than that of laying off employees.
There can be a somewhat pain-free solution, though: implementing mandatory days off without pay (also known as furloughs).
That's what D.D. Ford Construction of Santa Barbara, California, did in response to the stock market tanking and the housing market collapsing in the fall of 2008. President Doug Ford, charged with significantly cutting his monthly expenses, was preparing for a round of layoffs when his human resources manager suggested the furlough alternative.
Ford went forward with the plan, and it allowed him to temporarily, but quickly, cut $60,000 off his monthly payroll while avoiding the permanent pain of layoffs and costs of rehiring and retraining. "We were also able to keep the employees' benefits in place," says Ford. In addition, some states, like California, enable employees to collect unemployment for those days they are furloughed.
By Toddi Gutner. Read More >
There can be a somewhat pain-free solution, though: implementing mandatory days off without pay (also known as furloughs).
That's what D.D. Ford Construction of Santa Barbara, California, did in response to the stock market tanking and the housing market collapsing in the fall of 2008. President Doug Ford, charged with significantly cutting his monthly expenses, was preparing for a round of layoffs when his human resources manager suggested the furlough alternative.
Ford went forward with the plan, and it allowed him to temporarily, but quickly, cut $60,000 off his monthly payroll while avoiding the permanent pain of layoffs and costs of rehiring and retraining. "We were also able to keep the employees' benefits in place," says Ford. In addition, some states, like California, enable employees to collect unemployment for those days they are furloughed.
By Toddi Gutner. Read More >
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Performance Review Phrases to help you overcome
At a loss for words when writing performance reviews? Not quite sure how to put them together or what format? You are not alone!
For most managers and supervisors the annual performance review process is about as much fun as completing your income tax return right after a root canal. There is no wonder why so many managers put off doing performance reviews or skip them altogether. Managers who delay or skip annual performance reviews are missing a great opportunity to motivate their employees.
Writing comments on performance review forms can be difficult. This list of sample performance review phrases is a starting point for more in depth comments along the same line. Try to sandwich the bad comments with the good to show that you have noticed the positive as well as the negative performance.
Positive Attributes:
• Adapts well to change
• Works well under pressure
• Maintains a positive attitude when under stress
• Is an active listener
• Demonstrates effective [insert written or verbal] communication skills
• Is highly professional and presents well to clients/customers
• Is someone that can be depended on
• Manages time well
• Seeks out responsibility and follows through
• Pays attention to details
• Constantly seeks professional development opportunities
• Happy to be here
• Demonstrates a high level of self confidence
• Demonstrates a high level of self esteem
• Has a pleasant personality
• Follows directions well
• Accepts responsibility willingly
• Goes beyond the call of duty
• Exceeds expectations
• Demonstrates a sense of humor
• Is highly conscientious about the quality of work
• Contributes frequently in meetings and impromptu gatherings
• Takes an active part in discussions on [insert topic]
• Gets along well with colleagues
• Strives to cooperate with all staff
• Is very thoughtful and considerate of other staff
• Takes criticism well and learns from mistakes
• Demonstrates a strong team playing ability
• Works well independently
• Accepts responsibility eagerly
• Work demonstrates conscientiousness
• Is highly enthusiastic
• Shows great flexibility
• Mature and responsible
• Isn’t afraid to ask questions
• Shares information clearly and concisely
• Is bright and talented
Performance Improvement:
• Is developing a better attitude towards [insert previous problem]
• Is showing more interest and enthusiasm
• Is demonstrating a higher degree of independence
• Has strengthened his/her skills in [insert area of improvement]
• I am encouraged at [insert name]’s level of commitment towards professional growth
• Needs to improve the speed to complete [insert type of task]
• Needs to demonstrate more of a team player attitude
• Needs to improve on follow through
• Capable of stronger performance in [insert area of weakness]
• Needs more training in [insert area]
• Sacrifices accuracy for speed
• Shows an inconsistency effort in [insert task]
• Is a poor time manager, consistently misses deadlines
• Doesn’t listen to directions
• Cannot make decisions independently
• Has difficulty prioritizing workload
• Shows a lack of energy and/or interest in the work
Potential:
• Has great potential for a leadership role in the future
• Is strong in [insert skill]
• Could be transferred to [insert department name]
• Has a background in [insert area of expertise] that is being underutilized
• Is considered to be star talent in this department
• Is ready to meet with clients directly
• Shows promise in sales or client presentations
If you are looking for additional helps, check out the links and books below.
Employee Manual & Employee Performance Reviews eBook
For most managers and supervisors the annual performance review process is about as much fun as completing your income tax return right after a root canal. There is no wonder why so many managers put off doing performance reviews or skip them altogether. Managers who delay or skip annual performance reviews are missing a great opportunity to motivate their employees.
Writing comments on performance review forms can be difficult. This list of sample performance review phrases is a starting point for more in depth comments along the same line. Try to sandwich the bad comments with the good to show that you have noticed the positive as well as the negative performance.
Positive Attributes:
• Adapts well to change
• Works well under pressure
• Maintains a positive attitude when under stress
• Is an active listener
• Demonstrates effective [insert written or verbal] communication skills
• Is highly professional and presents well to clients/customers
• Is someone that can be depended on
• Manages time well
• Seeks out responsibility and follows through
• Pays attention to details
• Constantly seeks professional development opportunities
• Happy to be here
• Demonstrates a high level of self confidence
• Demonstrates a high level of self esteem
• Has a pleasant personality
• Follows directions well
• Accepts responsibility willingly
• Goes beyond the call of duty
• Exceeds expectations
• Demonstrates a sense of humor
• Is highly conscientious about the quality of work
• Contributes frequently in meetings and impromptu gatherings
• Takes an active part in discussions on [insert topic]
• Gets along well with colleagues
• Strives to cooperate with all staff
• Is very thoughtful and considerate of other staff
• Takes criticism well and learns from mistakes
• Demonstrates a strong team playing ability
• Works well independently
• Accepts responsibility eagerly
• Work demonstrates conscientiousness
• Is highly enthusiastic
• Shows great flexibility
• Mature and responsible
• Isn’t afraid to ask questions
• Shares information clearly and concisely
• Is bright and talented
Performance Improvement:
• Is developing a better attitude towards [insert previous problem]
• Is showing more interest and enthusiasm
• Is demonstrating a higher degree of independence
• Has strengthened his/her skills in [insert area of improvement]
• I am encouraged at [insert name]’s level of commitment towards professional growth
• Needs to improve the speed to complete [insert type of task]
• Needs to demonstrate more of a team player attitude
• Needs to improve on follow through
• Capable of stronger performance in [insert area of weakness]
• Needs more training in [insert area]
• Sacrifices accuracy for speed
• Shows an inconsistency effort in [insert task]
• Is a poor time manager, consistently misses deadlines
• Doesn’t listen to directions
• Cannot make decisions independently
• Has difficulty prioritizing workload
• Shows a lack of energy and/or interest in the work
Potential:
• Has great potential for a leadership role in the future
• Is strong in [insert skill]
• Could be transferred to [insert department name]
• Has a background in [insert area of expertise] that is being underutilized
• Is considered to be star talent in this department
• Is ready to meet with clients directly
• Shows promise in sales or client presentations
If you are looking for additional helps, check out the links and books below.
Employee Manual & Employee Performance Reviews eBook
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