While the manager has six important responsibilities in the planning phase of performance management, the individual actually has seven. Again, most of the responsibilities involve activities that happen before the actual meeting. Before the Meeting 1. Review the organization’s mission statement and your own department’s goals. 2. Review your job description and determine your critical [...]

The manager has six primary responsibilities. Four of them you’ll work on before the meeting with the individual. The other two you’ll accomplish during the meeting. Before the Meeting 1. Review the organization’s mission statement, or vision and values, and your own department’s goals. 2. Read the individual’s job description. Think about the goals and [...]

Performance planning is a discussion. It is the first step of an effective performance management process. Performance planning typically involves a meeting of about an hour or so between an appraiser and an appraisee. The agenda for this meeting includes four major activities: 1. Coming to agreement on the individual’s key job responsibilities 2. Developing [...]

Yes, performance appraisal is really necessary. And, no, there is no better way to obtain the benefits. There are several books that argue in favor of abolishing performance appraisals altogether. But the procedures they recommend are merely workarounds; the steps they recommend to create an alternative to performance appraisal are the same ones that any [...]

No appraisal system is immune to legal challenge. Nonetheless, the risk of legal difficulties can be minimized if seven basic good management practices are followed. 1. Base the performance appraisal on an analysis of the job. 2. Define your performance dimensions in behavioral terms and support assessments with observable, objective evidence. 3. Keep things simple. [...]

First, there is no legal requirement that a company must have a performance appraisal system. No law compels an organization to review the performance of its members, just as no law requires a company to produce annual budgets or provide good customer service. Conducting performance reviews, creating budgets, and giving good service are simply accepted [...]

No. While many people believe that managers discriminate, either deliberately or unconsciously, in their appraisal ratings, research on performance appraisal indicates that performance ratings are remarkably bias-free. Tell Me More In a major research project published in Psychological Bulletin, Frank Landy and James Farr reviewed all of the research that had been conducted over a [...]

Yes. Deming and others in the quality movement correctly noted that individuals are rarely the responsible parties when quality problems arise. More frequently, poor quality is a function of system breakdowns and bad processes, not individual failures. Deming urged organizations to concentrate on system problems and not human problems. That approach may work well for [...]

There are several reasons performance appraisal doesn’t work as well as it might: No Ownership. Too often, neither the manager nor the individual has any sense of ownership. They weren’t involved in the design or administration of the system. They frequently are not trained to use it effectively. Finally, human resources rarely asks about their [...]

Does performance appraisal take too long? Let’s calculate just how much time the performance management process takes. The planning meeting lasts forty-five minutes to an hour, once a year. Writing some- body’s performance appraisal takes another hour, maybe an hour and a half. And the performance appraisal discussion takes about forty-five minutes with most people. [...]

You should have a minimum of two meetings. You’ll hold one at the beginning of the year—the performance planning meeting—where you will talk about the important results to be achieved over the next twelve months. In this meeting you and your subordinate will review the job description, the organization’s mission and vision and values statements, [...]

The performance management process in our organization has conflicting purposes. We use it to determine merit increases and performance feedback for work done during the previous twelve months, to determine training needs, and as a key tool in succession planning. Can one procedure really serve all those functions well? One of the fundamental problems with [...]

Performance appraisal serves over a dozen different organizational purposes: Providing feedback to employees about their performance Determining who gets promoted Facilitating layoff or downsizing decisions Encouraging performance improvement Motivating superior performance Setting and measuring goals Counseling poor performers Determining compensation changes Encouraging coaching and mentoring Supporting manpower planning or succession planning Determining individual training and [...]

There are early references to performance appraisal in America going back over a hundred years. The federal Civil Service Commission’s merit rating system was in place in 1887. Lord & Taylor introduced performance appraisal in 1914. Many companies were influenced by Frederick Taylor’s ‘‘scientific management’’ efforts of the early twentieth century and concocted performance appraisals. [...]

Performance appraisal is a formal management system that provides for the evaluation of the quality of an individual’s performance in an organization. The appraisal is usually prepared by the employee’s immediate supervisor. The procedure typically requires the supervisor to fill out a standardized assessment form that evaluates the individual on several different dimensions and then [...]

Question I am a member of a surgical group and would very much like to take some of these principles into my office. Has anyone attempted this? If so, I’d like a little guidance. Answer Yes, we have seen physicians take these principles into their offices with excellent results. In the span of two years, [...]

Question If we are supposed to buy into the idea that we can all make a difference, and that we are all in it together, then why do we have a separate team for doctors? Answer Yes, there is a separate team for employees, but the reality is the physician is an independent member of [...]

Question Some of our physicians complain that when RNs or clinicians call for change of meds, review test results, etc., the caller does not have all the pertinent info about the patient. Physicians are then put on hold, which frustrates them immensely. Is there a checklist that an RN/clinician can use before picking up the [...]

Question Disruptive physician conduct has become a concern at our facility. Have you encountered any methods or practices that have proven successful regarding this issue? Answer I have several suggestions: Involve physicians on the Service Teams where appropriate. Ask physicians to model behavior consistent with your organization’s standards of behavior and sign a written copy [...]

Question What are the drivers for physician satisfaction in the hospital setting? Answer The key drivers are quality, efficiency, input, appreciation, and telling the truth. Specifically, physicians want the following: Quality: Assurance that their patients are receiving quality care. Efficient Operations: Lab results should be on charts when physicians do their rounding, operating rooms should [...]

Question We would like to print cards with our logo and some phrase/mission/value statement to be used for patient service recovery. One program we are looking at is writing a personal note to the patient when we have failed to apologize and explain how the situation is being addressed. Does this make sense? Answer I [...]

Question We are confused. We have very good scores on cleanliness in our inpatient areas, but have been unable to move the needle in our outpatient areas. What can we do? Answer First, review the scores in all outpatient areas (lab, waiting areas, mammography, radiology, etc.) and find out specifically what areas are perceived by [...]

Question Our scores for food temperatures have been in the mid 80s. Do you know of other organizations that have improved their scores? Do you have pointers in how we can script our staff so that if patients aren’t satisfied with their meal, they won’t hesitate to let us know? Answer Here are some suggestions [...]

Question What are the essentials of a great waiting room experience in an outpatient setting? Answer We believe these actions are essential to a great waiting room experience and so we call them the five fundamentals of service: Acknowledge patient by name. Introduce yourself. Describe. Let the patient know how to make himself comfortable, and [...]

Question We would like some ideas about how to achieve 90th percentile patient satisfaction for meals while maintaining a productivity benchmark of 25 percent. Answer First, it is definitely possible to achieve above the 90th percentile in patient satisfaction while maintaining a productivity benchmark of 25 percent. We were able to achieve this at the [...]

Question I have been challenged to develop a top 10 list of appropriate responses to a patient’s request that a nurse can use when she is too busy or working with a more critical patient. We have heard many examples of what not to say, and have offended patients when the nurses are trying to [...]

Question I am co-leader of the Inpatient/Outpatient Team. What is the best way to implement call light responses and improve response time? Answer Responding well to call lights is an important quality and risk issue. The best process focuses on eliminating call lights from going off in the first place. Most call lights are for [...]

Question We completed an internal survey targeting those areas that support staff in taking care of patients. One area that scored particularly low was human resources. They were concerned when they saw a mean score in the 40s related to accuracy and in the 50s related to timeliness. They very much want to improve but [...]

Question Let me first say my staff is great! I just cannot seem to get the buy in on bedside registration in the ED. Thanks for any suggestions you may have. Answer First, ask the ED Satisfaction Team or the nursing staff who do not see value in bedside registration to “secret shop.” Have them [...]

Question Sometimes, once the decision has been made to admit the patient to an inpatient bed, there is not a bed available. It can take hours to get the patient to the unit. Some nurses find it difficult to continue to tell the patient the bed is not yet ready, so they avoid going in [...]

Question I am an ED nurse in a mostly chaotic emergency department. Our manager and medical director have recently attended one of your seminars and converted to your philosophy. Our ED historically has an overall poor customer satisfaction rating but receives higher marks for quality technical medical care. I understand that these are two different [...]