Goal Setting for Employee Reviews

In our last blog we discussed the set-up and the rating portion of an employee review. These 'grades' give the employee and the employer a defined position as to their success in the workplace.

Now comes the fun and challenging part--setting employee goals for the upcoming twelve months. Goals need to be clearly defined for any category in which the employee was rated below average by the company, or for areas in which the employee rated them self below average.

If you followed the plan laid out last week, both the employer and the employee would bring in goals for climbing above average. As an example, lets take the goals of getting to work on time and working the full day. This one isn't a judgement call; if the employee was late more than five times during the year, it is a problem to be resolved.

Going into this review you (as the employer) know this will be a topic to discuss. It is not enough to discuss this and tell the employee to get up earlier. The goal is to see why the employee was late and fix that problem. If the employee rated them self as OK then your plan is to explain the company policies very clearly. I like to go through the costs of a four-man crew being delayed for fifteen or thirty minutes.

Union glaziers in the New York City metropolitan area cost about $75 an hour. Four men delayed for 15 minutes, 6 times a year is $450 a year, and if each man on this crew takes 6 late-arrivals, this is an $1800 cost for a year. Make this amount understandable...$1800 may be the cost of family dental insurance or 15 new suction cups.

Ask why the employee is late. Do they have to get a child on a school bus, and when the bus is late, they wait with the child? Or, did they just drink too much the night before and sleep through the alarm? Two extreme sides of the problem.

For the first, see if there is a different set of hours that may be acceptable. If the day started a half-hour later for this employee, would that help or hurt the company? If he/she goes out with a truck, than its a problem. If they are part of an overall work crew in a plant, maybe this will work. Ask the employee to check if a neighbor may be able to put the child on the bus. Maybe the employee can drop the kid off on the way to work. On days the bus is late, ask the employee to call in and let the foreman know what is happening. Maybe, if this is a truck crew, they can pick him/her up on the way. The employee would be responsible to take their gear home each night and be ready for work if picked up on the way. Find out how long the child will be on this bus schedule. They may be moving up at the start of the school year and be on a different schedule, and we all live with it until the end of the school year. Ask the employee if the spouse can wait with the kids by the bus. I remember one man I spoke with on this very subject, and he told me that his wife didn't want to go to the bus stop in bad weather. My employee said he would take care of it for his wife. When I pointed out that this might cost him his job he couldn't understand it. I learned something from this. This gentleman came from Latin America where a man would gladly stand out in the weather or do just about anything, to take care of his wife.

I didn't understand that culture had a large impact to this man. So, I changed what was going to be a hard nosed approach to one of understanding his needs to protect his wife. We then worked a plan where we met with his wife and discussed the situation. After ten minutes of discussing options, I explained the importance of her husband being on time as he was part of a team that did a critical job in the plant, and he was missed when a substitute had to fill in for him. She was pleased at how important we thought her husband had become and volunteered to take the child to the bus stop to help her husband.

It was just a matter of asking the right question and then listening to the answer. There was an extra 15 minute meeting in my life. That is a small price to pay to keep a good employee working.

In the middle of the pack are the problems of the employee who comes to work with another employee. Is it fair to penalize someone when his ride was late? Yes. His responsibility is to be at work, and if the driver is late, there are now two people late. So, its OK to ask the passenger to put pressure on the driver to be on time. I also talked with the driver and told him that he was hurting his friend by picking him up late. These two approaches worked. Peer pressure is one of the best positive tools to create a change that is needed.

What if the far end of the spectrum is the case. I had no sympathy for the hangover as an excuse to be late. We explained that reliability is the most important job characteristic. We didn't hesitate to warn and then suspend and then fire someone who was late on the day after payday on a consistent basis.

We found that our employees knew more about their co-workers than we ever could. When we were able to work with a person in a special need situation the plant understood and worked with us. The workers were also pleased that we terminated the consistent late arrived because they knew his hangovers affected the operation of his department.

The point here is to get to the root cause of the problem.

Next comes the the employee who is trying hard, but just can't seem to grasp the whole picture of his/hers job duties. So often I graded someone a two ( a 1-5 scale, with three as average), and the employee also gave them self a two. You and the employee agree there is room for improvement, but the employee is at a loss as to what to do.

Since I had rated him a two prior to having the interview, I set-up a half-dozen steps the employee could take to improve. If the employee had rated them self a four, this would have been a struggle, more often then not ending in searching for a new employee. But in rating him self a two, he knew he had to improve. He was eager to hear the suggestions. the root cause for his weakness was a lack of understanding written English. When verbal instructions were given, he was fine, but if there was a written page on an order, with no drawings, he was having difficulty. By the time he had walked around a little-bit trying to get someone to read the instructions to him, he lost time on the job, and subsequently produced less product than someone else on the same work station. This was simply solved by getting him to enroll in and English as a Second Language Course at a local community college. We did this with many of our employees and it truly helped as the course was structured for a working person. Most community colleges or school district night GED programs have a course like this. For the gentleman's review a couple of months after finishing the course, I rated him as a four, and so did he on him self.

Talk about a win-win result.

What about the times when there is not a good result. When setting the goals make them simple and understandable. It doesn't work saying to a person, you have to increase your output of goods when they don't know how to do that. The job of management is to lay out these steps. Some other ones that have worked are: set the employee up with a senior employee in the plant for a week or two of buddy training. Give the employee 10 minutes at the end of today's shift to look through the production tickets or job sites for tomorrow's work and ask questions today on what looks confusing. This can become an everyday task and generally helps all concerned. Set up another Foreman to help out by checking with the employee a couple of times during the day to answer questions. I have asked many employees if they are happy with their job and, if not, is this affecting their performance? A lot of yes answers here. It is not wrong, where possible, to change a person's job in-house. If anything, this gives you broader cross-training. This doesn't work if the employee is just lazy. Transferring a problem-child to another job still leaves a problem-child. This is why the face-to-face review is so important. Is the employee trying to buy a couple of more paychecks with a sob story, or can real change been seen right off the bat? Here is where you set defined goals with a defined time to have a follow-up review session. You and the employee must agree on the new criteria to define success in the job. Try to set these points as specifically as possible. Tell the employee if they are not met his continued employment is in serious jeopardy. And if they are not met, then as a supervisor your last step is to provide 'career guidance' telling the employee that they did not succeed at this job and what you think they might succeed at in another job...somewhere else. This has to happen for any company to grow.

There is not one manager of a company who hits a home run with every employee hired. Every company has turnover. If you can keep your turnover down, you save money. Proper employee reviews keep turnover down as you may salvage some problem cases.

Another interesting thought on employee reviews. In thirty some years I never gave an employee a one, or the lowest grade. If an employee deserves a one grade, this should have been addressed earlier than the annual employee review. If someone breaks a rule, whether intentionally or not, you have to address it immediately.

Setting goals is not only for the under achiever. Someone who gets all fours on their review still needs goals or the job becomes boring. If you have a good employee ask them if they want to take on more responsibilities on a trial basis. Follow that up weekly to check for success or problems. The most common thing we did with a successful employee was to give them computer time to learn something new about their jobs. Give someone a copy of Windows for Dummies, or Office for Dummies and a couple of weeks later you have someone trained in a new job. We would loan out our hand-me-down computers for someone to take home to study. Be careful here in saying this is a requirement; it it is, then you are paying for over-time. If the employee has come to you and asks how to learn at home, and you help them, it is not compensable.

I gave eager employees back issues of trade magazines like US Glass. Have them look at every article and ad; then go online and look at each web site and bring in questions on what is not understood. This is the best education you can get on a self directed basis.

A strong employee might like to grow in another geographic location if that is part of your company structure. Maybe they will come to you with a course from a local school they want to take. I strongly encourage a company to work with strong employees on this. At the end of the course have the employee teach a couple of hours of a summary of the course to you and selected others in your company. You will get people who take a course and then quit. OK, that risk is no different than giving a customer product and then not getting paid. This happens every day in business.

Summing up, the goal setting portion of the employee review, to me, is the most enjoyable part of the whole process. This allowed me to make real suggestions to help another person grow in our company. The ones that worked far overshadowed the ones that didn't.

Next week we will discuss the financial review for employees. If you have any questions or comments, please post them on the US Glass News Forum, and we'll get right back to you with answers.

Love it or hate it: The Annual Employee Review is a must!

Communications with employees and/or communications with management are the most important moments any company can create. Let's get one thing out of the way first. Employee reviews are not mandatory nor is there any required way of doing them by any law. Legal situations may come up, usually in a discrimination or termination situation, and well done employee review will be your best friend in getting a fair result.

An employee review, if done well, will improve the employee which will in turn improve the whole company. Guaranteed. Here's the formula that works.

Consistency in reviews is crucial, which is why a standardized type of form is important. Each review should follow the same format. If your company has a standard form then use it. A bad form, used well, is better than no review. (You can always work to improve the form.)

Since there are no perfect employees or managers, discussion on areas that need to be changed can be taken as constructive criticism or as being picked on. After disagreements during reviews, and then you go right into the financial review, most employees will say that you gave them a bad review just to keep the raise low. They won't hear that constructive criticism will help them to work better, helping the company, and creating more opportunities to get better pay! A smart company will separate the employee review from the financial review. If you give all employees raises at the same time, then do the reviews on the anniversary of their employment. If raises are based on anniversary date, reviews should be done in a fixed annual schedule. Take the slowest time of the year so managers and employees have time to prepare the reviews.

An employment review should cover:

• Basic 'housekeeping'. Does the employee show up on time, adhere to basic schedules, and prove to be generally reliable?
• Safety. Does the employee follow posted safety rules, use required safety gear and set a good role model for others in the shop?
• Presentation. Does the employee represent the company as required? Are uniforms worn within guidelines? When customers see employees do they present a positive image of the company?
• Work quality. Does the employee strive to make the best products? Are their installations neat with few callbacks? Do they make quality sales calls?
• Work quantity. Does the employee meet the standards set by the company for timeliness of completion, units produced, papers filed?
• Follow up on previous goals set. Just what it says, a quick review of last year's goals and where the employee and the company stand.
• Creation of current year's goals. THE MOST IMPORTANT AND THE HARDEST PART TO DO.

The timing and setup for the review is crucial. The review is how well the employee has succeeded in reaching personal and company goals. It is a time to define changes needed and discuss variations from company policy or plans.

The financial review is how much the employee can and should earn if they reach goals. If you do the financial review and the employee review together, the employee is only waiting to hear how much they will earn, and everything else, the truly important part, falls on deaf ears. If the raise is not as much as the employee expects, and few are, then the review turns into a defense of the companies financial positions rather then the give and take conversation needed to improve the employee's performance. We'll fully cover the financial review in two weeks.

Even a very good employee has some areas that can be improved, or the close to perfect employee needs challenges set to keep them on the top of their game, maybe to pass on their good work habits to others.

Let's discuss timing and the set-up of the review. There should be a standard company-wide cover letter that explains the review using the categories above. Manager and employee together should set the time, date and location for the review. Almost all employee review formats include a numerical or letter grade quantifying the employee's achievements in the category. There are usually 8-12 categories. If there are more than that, consider redrawing the review itself to get down to that level. The employee and the manager each grade the employee's achievement in all categories, and both writes out their goals are for the upcoming year.

Set the time and place for the reviews. Pick a room without visual distractions, but if you can't, then arrange the seating so that you are the one looking at distraction. The review should take 45-60 minutes. Don't schedule just before yours or the employee's lunch time or the ending time for the day. Minds wander to errands that have to be run or just going home. Avoid Mondays, which are usually a busy business day, and Friday's because every one's mind is already on the weekend. From the manager's point of view, schedule no more than two per day or six per week.

Wait a minute right here---six people just said how can I limit myself to six a week, when I have five crews with seven men each. That's an easy one. The crew foreman is the correct person to do the review, and you do the review on the foremen. It means teaching the foreman to do reviews, and the best possible way to do that is to give the foreman a well thought out and planned review. A good rule-of-thumb is to have nor more than 8-10 direct reports.

Let's go to the review. All cell phones and blackberries off. No interruptions unless it is a major catastrophe. No employee wants to think you have something more important to consider than their future. A private, comfortable place to talk. Don't go back to the manager's office, which sends the unsubtle message of who is the boss. If that is the only place, then sit in front of your desk to be equal with the employee.

Here comes another wait-a-minute! How can the manager reprimand the employee for being late for the past month if he/she doesn't show their power coming from behind the desk? This gets right to the core of the employee review. If you have an ongoing problem that should be addressed, address it immediately as it occurs. Don't think the review is coming up and you will handle it there. Run your business correctly...if the review wasn't coming up, you would have corrected the problem, so do it. The review should be about trends in the employee's work and not one specific issue.

When you set-up the review date with the employee go over the review form and ask them to honestly rate them self and set goals for the coming year. Most managers will say they set the goals and the employee does the job to meet them. A good review session will bring out that the employee wants to learn a second language or learn how to use the computer, maybe upgrade their driver's license, or learn a new skill in the plant. Unless you are starting a new location, you will find that in a well done review that employee's goals will be practical and well founded in the current workplace.

You won't get perfect answers the first year, but you will in the second year, when employees work through the results from the first interview with this format.

Let's get to the review itself. Two minutes of chit-chat and then go to work. First, ask the employee what they rated them self on the first category. I have done thousands of reviews, so maybe eight thousand category questions, and in 75% of them the manager and the employee have the same grade. If the same grade is a high one, offer congratulations to the employee and move to the next category. If it is a low one, then look at the employee and say "we agree that you are not at full speed here, what can you do, and what can I do to get you to the top grade?" Let the employee speak first. The results will surprise you. Just about always you should go ahead with the employee plan. If you tell the employee what to do it is a burden on the employee, however, if they want to do something and need support in some area it is an opportunity to have a win-win result.

If you have ten categories, I promise you that five or six will be dead-on with what you have written.

The next choice is that the employee has written a lower grade than you have. Same as above, let the employee strive to improve and you say thank you. It doesn't hurt to praise the employee here by pointing out that in this category you felt they did a good job, but if they feel they can improve, you support that all the way.

The last possibility is that your rating is lower than that of the employee's self-rating. This is the case where you will spend ten minutes planning. First minute or two, explain why you have your grade, then let the employee explain their grade. You will learn a lot right here. More often then not, one of the two of you will change their grade. Assume you are using a 1-5 rating scale, with one being a major problem in the category and 5 is a home run. Problems in the work place occur when an employee thinks he/she is a four and you see a two. This is either a problem that needs to be stomped on, or an opportunity to improve an employee's attitude or work effort.

Of course, the manager will not know in advance which categories will be this way, so the manager must be prepared to discuss all ten, but in reality, you will only discuss two or three in any given review. If there are more than that you have bigger problems. This employee will need special training and handling to not become a lost cause.

Going into the review the manager should have sketched out a remedial plan for any category getting a two or less on a five point scale. Even if the manager and employee come up with the same answer, and it is a two, you should discuss this area. The good news is: the employee agrees with you that there needs to be improvement, so you will be creating a two-way approach to improvement.

We have run long enough for today. Next week we'll discuss the goal setting parts of the review, and the week after, the financial review.

If you have any questions, ask them in the USGNN Forum and we will be right back to you with answers.

Communications in a Glass Company

Let's talk about communications within a glass company...actually, this will be applicable to all companies. The current buzz word is 'stakeholders'. This is anyone who has an interest in the success of the company you are involved with. The first stake holder is ownership; owners are entitled to a realistic return on their investment, whether financial or sweat equity. Next is management, which in most glass shops is the same as ownership. Third is employees, fourth is vendors and last but not least is customers.

Each group should be communicating with all of the others. Some groups have distinct communications channels, for instance in a public company, management communicates with owners in an annual report. Since many of US Glass' readers are glass shops, we'll concentrate on that area. It will take weeks to cover all of the channels, so let's start with, what to me, is the most important: employees and management communicating together. This should be a two-way street. A company that actively solicits and uses employee's thoughts and ideas will be more successful than one that doesn't. (In the for-profit world, success is defined as earning that return on investment, a good paycheck, and a little extra!)

Management and employees interact every day; get this job done first, then do this or that, and keep the trucks clean! The important conversation is about reaching the company's goals and the employees' goals. In small and medium size (up to 35 people), this should be a group meeting, maybe including all people, and in larger companies, broken down by department or shift. Management/ownership doesn't have to give specific financial numbers, but can discuss goals of customer satisfaction, safety, number of units manufactured or installed, deliveries made or percentage of accounts receivable past due. Work with the employees to set goals, usually quarterly, and then discuss the path to that goal. Some goals may take a year or two, some maybe set up in a week or two.

Set some early guidelines, like we won't discuss wages in this group meeting and then encourage the employees to bring in goals. A goal may be selling more of a specific product (like low-e), or improving the organization of receiving glass from fabricators and factories. The people who actually do the installing know which vendor is easiest to work with. Accept the fact that most employees will be quiet and let one or two do all the speaking. This is OK, this is how you develop leadership.

Have a consistency to each meeting. Always, always, always start out with safety. Discuss any accidents that have occurred and how to prevent them in the future. Discuss new procedures or equipment that impact safety. If you have a safety committee, this doesn't replace the committee, but underscores the company's commitment to safety. Limit this to ten minutes; if more time is needed on safety, then set up a distinct safety meeting with everyone involved. Then spend ten minutes on the goals discussed at the last meeting and how far you are down the path of reaching them. What still needs to be done? Are there any questions about those goals?

Next do twenty minutes on a specific topic, like a new product you want to carry, maybe a window or door product, or ultra-clear glass, or why low-e works. Go over specific handling techniques. Maybe the discussion is how to politely get the COD payment, or how to handle credit cards. Use ten minutes to introduce your program and ten minutes to answer questions about it. Let's say your program has five points to it; discuss four of them in that first ten minutes and hope someone asks a question about your last point. If not, bring it up as a closing point to that segment of the meeting. Come in prepared with catalogs, price sheets or pictures.

The next ten minutes should discuss a success that your company has created and how that can be copied into other parts of your company. Maybe an installation went smoothly; ask that crew what was unique about this job and how all people can work to get to those same conditions. Maybe a salesperson or someone who works on your customer counter created a special order and what you need to do to get more orders like that.

The last ten minutes should be general question and answer about anything that comes up. The first meeting will be awkward, but you will find that as the meetings become a regular part of your company, people will be prepared with questions.

Some people reading this blog, the great portion of life called 'middle management' will be involved in two meetings, one in which you are a leader and one in which you are the employee. Set the tone by bringing well-thought out questions if you are on the employee side. When on the leadership side you have the capacity to say "Let me think about this question and get back to you", or to say "That's not a topic we can discuss in this type of meeting". The meetings are not a chance to embarrass someone, you or another employee. Try to think ahead and announce the next meeting's quarterly topic, so people get a chance to think about questions they bring in.

Make the meetings casual by having a soft drink, maybe some fruit juice, or donuts. Toss out a candy bar to each person that asks a question. If you would like more info on this type of meeting, leave a post on the US Glass Forum, describing what type of company you are, and I will gladly create a custom agenda for your first meeting!

The other type of company-employee communication is the annual review which will be the topic of next week's blog.

Thanks for reading this. Any questions???? Post them on the US Glass Forum and you will get answers.

Let's Turn Tax Time into our Benefit

There is an energy tax credit for every homeowner who has installed new energy saving windows. The rule is easy--does the window meet the energy star criteria? Most new windows, especially those with Low-E will meet this standard.

The taxpayer will get a credit for 10% of the purchase price, to a $200 maximum for qualifying windows. There are also credits for replacing boilers, roofs, or adding insulation.

This is a credit to taxes which is better than a deduction. A credit is a direct reduction of taxes owed. You don't have to itemize deductions to take advantage of a tax credit.

So here is what every glass shop and window distributor should do:

Confirm that the windows you sell are eligible for the energy-star rating. If they are not, change to ones that are.

Next, make a list of every customer you sold a window to during 2006.

Call each customer and explain to them that their purchase may be eligible for the energy tax credit up to $200. Then recommend that they talk with their professional tax advisor for more details. Some of your customers may know this. So What! No one minds a phone call reminding them how to reduce tax bills. Right now is the time to do this.

Everyone will say thanks and appreciate your phone call. Believe me, this is a winner. A possible call will sound like this:

"Hi Mrs. Brown, this is Paul from Paul's Glass Shop, we were the company that installed your low-e window(s) last August. I just wanted to remind you that the US Government is giving a tax credit on the purchase of energy-efficient windows, and that your windows qualify for this credit. It is important that you mention this to whomever is preparing your taxes. They will know what to do from there."

Customers will say thank you. You can extend the conversation by asking them if they have any questions about their new windows or door. You can gently remind them that you do other types of glass work, whether it is shower doors or auto glass. If they liked the windows you installed, could they recommend a friend who may be interested?

Try not to leave this message on a machine, it will get lost in the clutter. Try to speak with the decisive buyer on your previous installation. This is not a sales call though; be gentle in tone. This is just a follow-up, that may save your customer money. This will cause them to remember you when they need services in the future.

Let their tax advisor give the exact details on taxes. You want to become their low-e glass advisor.