What is a self-evaluation?

During a typical employee performance review, a supervisor reviews how well the employee has performed their duties. The conversation usually reviews some of the employee’s achievements while providing criticism, so the employee can meet the new expectations the supervisor sets. This method usually causes tension because employees fear criticism, and the feedback comes from an external source.

A self-review allows the employee to bring up their shortcomings and provide ideas for overcoming the obstacles they feel are keeping them from succeeding. They can share what they feel they’ve done right, how well they understand the company’s culture and goals and where they fit into them. More importantly, it allows the employee to evaluate the management staff, so the conversation isn’t one-sided.

To get the most benefit out of this type of review, the following conditions must be met:

• The employee provides an honest assessment of their performance and is willing to acknowledge the areas where they show weak performance.
• The employee’s achievements are acknowledged and how those accomplishments advance the goals of the department or company is considered.
• The evaluation is relevant to the employee’s role in the company.
• The employee is assured that anycriticisms of their supervisors won’t bemet with retaliation or punitive measures.
• The review discusses tangible goals and how the employee feels they can meet them.
• The review is followed by a discussion on how the employee can improve their performance and how management can assist them in reaching their goals.

Supervisors can motivate employees by helping them set goals properly. Many people set large, lofty goals for themselves and set themselves up for failure when those goals aren’t realistic. Setting milestones along the way to hit within reasonable time periods can help an employee hit a much larger goal.

Benefits of evaluations for employees

A self-assessment allows the employee to contemplate what they’ve contributed to your organization and perform some soul searching over how they can improve. It makes the employee have an honest internal conversation regarding self-improvement, so any changes they feel are needed come willingly.

These evaluations shouldn’t be complex or take a lot of time to complete because they’re simple snapshots of where the employee sees themself at the moment.Unlike traditional performance reviews, self-reviews should take around 15 minutes to complete and are most effective if the employee completes them on a regular basis.

When speaking with their supervisor, the employee can review past evaluations and pinpoint areas of growth, along with trends that require attention. If the same topic keeps appearing in these reviews, it should become an area of focus. The supervisor can use that information to provide suggestions or definitive changes that can help the employee resolve those issues and perform better.

Everyone responds to criticism differently, and when employees are required to consider their weaknesses themselves, they’re more likely to accept the critiques. The desire to improve comes from within, and a supervisor can work with them to see those desired improvements come to fruition.

While performance reviews are necessary, they’re often much more effective when a supervisor can use information from earlier self-reviews to encourage the employee to pursue the changes needed.

Benefits for employers

One of the primary benefits of self-evaluationfor management is that it helps supervisors understand their employees. It shows how each employee sees their role within the organization, whether they disagree with management and what types of incentives are most effective when motivating them.

The feedback provided is invaluable because managers can detect trends and adjust their leadership strategy if multiple employees reveal needs they’re not receiving. Evaluations can also reveal skills and strengths an employee has that they feel aren’t being utilized properly.

If the employer can find a way to put those talents to use, it can improve workflow and strengthen the entire team. It can also provide insight as to where the employee sees themself struggling and needing assistance. An employee might not have the resources or support needed to reach their performance goals. They might require additional training or a different role within the organization to thrive.

One of the things employers struggle with during performance reviews is presenting criticism in a manner that won’t come across as demeaning or discouraging. Self-evaluations provide the ability to review an employee’s answers in an encouraging tone, so the employee is more motivated to improve.

A supervisor can also take notice of the positive things said and provide recognition. This ensures that the experience isn’t focused on the negative aspects of an employee’s performance.

What should be included in aself-evaluation

It’s important to provide guidance to your employees when asking them to provide evaluations on their own work and progress. It can be difficult for employees to evaluate themselves, so providing a structured process often helps them gather their thoughts and provide honest assessments. There shouldn’t be a lot of questions to answer, but the ones that you ask should be relevant.

These self-evaluation for performance review examples can help you determine the best questions to ask your employees:

• What are you proud of accomplishing?It’s okay for employees to have pride in their work, and this question allows them to sell their achievements. When reviewing the answers to this question, see how each employee’s accomplishments contributed to the overall success of the department or business.
• What is something that you feel you can work on?Rather than asking the employee to provide an example of failure, leaving it open for them to acknowledge an area where they can improve prevents them from being too critical of themselves through the evaluation.
• What is something that you’ve learned in the past month?The goal of this question is to learn how the employee approaches growth. A response could highlight a problem the employee encountered, as well as the initiative they took to learn how to solve it then and whenever it comes up in the future.
• Is there anything you feel you’re struggling with at the moment?This is an honest question that allows the employee to communicate frustrations and needs. The reasons they’re struggling could be a lack of support, resources or experience. Unless you’re aware of the problem, you’re unable to troubleshoot solutions.
• What are your greatest strengths?This question examines whether the employee feels their strengths are aligning with the core goals of the business and the value they contribute. It’s another opportunity for the employee to provide a positive assessment of their successes.
• What are your weaknesses?This reveals what the employee recognizes as areas requiring improvement. The answer to this question can open the door to discussions on strategies to improve in these areas.
• What core values are most important to you?This tells you more about your employee on a personal level. It reveals personality traits, motivations and what type of worker they are. Some employees prefer to be autonomous, while others thrive when they’re a member of a team with a common purpose.
• Do you have any feedback for management?This is an opportunity to learn what your management staff can do to improve productivity. If multiple employees state they don’t feel they’re recognized for their accomplishments, for example, you can review the recognition and reward program that’s in place to determine how to make employees feel more valued for their successes.

Additional questions to consider

Making performance evaluations relevant to the position is important, so if the role requires certain skills or personality traits, including questions meant to assess those areas is a good idea.

Consider asking questions about the following:

• Teamwork:If the employee has to work well with others on team projects, include questions that should explore how well the employee gets along with team members and how they feel the team could improve as a group.
• Communication:Effective communication is required when employees work in teams or are responsible for managing other people. If the employee feels there is a hurdle to honest communication between team members or between themself and a supervisor, it’s important to discover these problems and consider resolutions.
• Leadership:If the employee has the aspiration to become a team leader or supervisor at some point, they need to display examples of wheretheirleadership qualitiesprovided value to the company.
• Humility:The most effective leaders in the workplacedisplay humility. Ask the employee to describe circumstances where they needed to set aside their pride for the good of the team or to complete a project.
• Creativity:Asking about times when an employee came up with a new way of doing something that changed the department helps you assess whether they can be trusted with more responsibilities. Problem solvers are able to tackle challenges that others might be unable to overcome.
• Dependability:Looking for examples of where your employee has proven to be dependable can also help determine whether they can take on more duties or a more demanding role in your organization.

Using open-ended questions can help the employee provide useful information. Avoid questions that can be answered with a yes or no response or a reply that’s several words long.

More frequent evaluations result in better communication

Performance reviews are traditionally performed once a year and involve sitting down with an employee through an interview. Management might highlight recent accomplishments and how the employee provided the most value to the company while suggesting areas for improvement and change.

People tend to dread walking into these evaluations because they feel critical and one-sided. The reason most people withhold information from their superiors is fear of retaliation.Combining performance reviews with self-evaluation makes the conversation two-sided and provides the employee with the opportunity to providecriticisms in return.

It’s important to allow employees to feel they can be critical of management when thecriticismis offered constructively. Your business can also use a regular evaluation process to turn supervisors intomentors for employees, rather than people who workers report to each day.

Modern performance reviews shouldn’t adhere to the traditional timeframe. Annual reviews aren’t as effective because they provide a snapshot of the present and often neglect progress made over the months preceding the review. This is referred to as recency bias.

Rather than conducting just one long performance review once a year, it’s more effective to conduct shorter reviews throughout the year. This makes it easier to look at the notes from past evaluations and determine whether the employee and supervisors made positive changes that had a defined impact on performance.

The information gathered over monthly evaluations can then contribute to an annual review that provides accurate insights that reflect the whole picture over the course of the past year.