It\u2019s the most wonderful time of the year! Time for many to experience the yearly tradition of: END OF THE YEAR PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS!\u00a0 Staff evaluations are a time honored tradition that cause the masses to collectively share a sense of dread and anxiety. (Just kidding…I think?)<\/p>\n
During my first stint as a library manager, I actually looked forward to the full process of evaluations with my staff. We were a tight team; working well together and openly discussing any problems or roadblocks as they arose. Even though it was my first experience managing other employees, I felt both comfortable and confident going to employees with any issues and working on solutions together. I advised my team that the information shared during the evaluations was not an attack, but rather a tool that we would refer to together to grow as individuals and a team to provide the best possible service that we could to our patrons.<\/p>\n
During this process, my co-manager approached me and asked what I thought about having our employees evaluate those in management roles for the first time in our organization\u2019s recent history. I was honestly excited about the opportunity to be evaluated by my team and excited to see the feedback that I could use to better my performance in the eyes of my staff. What could go wrong?<\/p>\n
Since I felt that my staff and I had a very open line of communication, I wasn\u2019t expecting to receive much new information from the evaluation. Oh my, was I WRONG! While I had assumed that the feelings of open dialog regarding bettering our services was two-way, my staff had been holding back on quite a few ideas that they had for me to better my own service to them. And while I always reassured staff that our evaluations were a tool to better ourselves, not an attack on performance, if I\u2019m being transparent, I\u2019ll admit that it sure felt like every critique or tip for improvement that I received from my staff during that first evaluation somehow felt like a personal attack. While the majority of the feedback was positive, the areas that showed room for improvement were eye opening to me, and changed how I approach intentional conversations with coworkers to this day. I learned that I need to approach ongoing feedback as a double edged mission: provide ongoing feedback and encouragement to my staff AND proactively seek their feedback on my leadership, not merely trusting in their comfort in approaching me.<\/p>\n
Using my own experiences, I\u2019ve created these quick tips for best practice in retrieving useful feedback from allowing your staff to evaluate you. All organizations are different, so please consider your own organizational and departmental needs when crafting your plan for conducting staff evaluations of management performance.<\/p>\n
Consider these sources for more information:<\/p>\n
4 Questions You Should Be Asking Your Employees<\/a><\/p>\n Letting Your Employees Review You Can Lead to Personal and Professional Growth<\/a><\/p>\n