Blog The importance of communication and evaluation to growth

The importance of communication and evaluation to growth

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Growth, communication, and evaluation are three closely related terms when it comes to personal, as well as team growth. Personal growth will tie in with team growth which then translates into companywide growth. None of that growth can happen without proper communication, guidance, and direction between individuals.

When interviewing candidates, it’s important to stress the knowledge share that occurs in your organization. You should compare knowledge to a candle in a dark room. If there are 30 people in a dark room holding candles but only one person has a lit candle (knowledge), the room will still be too dark. However, if that person gives the flame to others, the entire room will light up and everyone will be able to see clearly. There will be no growth without knowledge sharing, communication, evaluations, and a conscious effort to improve.

This is where we need help from highly knowledgeable and devoted team leads. The role of a team lead in a company is twofold. Not only are they responsible for the work performed on a project, but they are also responsible for the development of people who are working on that project. Training people requires a lot of time and effort, but if done correctly allows a team lead to delegate tasks, responsibility, and even authority to team members which can decrease their workload.

Let’s take a look at a classic ROI and BCR (benefits-cost ratio) calculation with regards to employee training. Since we’re looking at this from a team lead perspective, we’ll use time as an investment and as a benefit.

If a team lead invests 1,000 hours into training their subordinates and they gain about 3,000 extra hours for them to focus on their own work in the following year, they would be looking at a 200% ROI and a BCR (Benefit-Cost Ratio) of 3.

Read on: Vault’s Ultimate Guide: Which KPIs to watch to boost your HR

Following and evaluating the progress of subordinates gives a team lead and the entire company a clearer picture of the skill set and ability the company possesses. Properly evaluating and communicating progress to each subordinate will speed up the learning process and pave the road for growth. The key to success here is proper evaluation and feedback. Good feedback that’s communicated in a bad way is as ineffective as bad feedback that’s communicated in a good way.

There are some basic rules to follow when creating a solid evaluation plan that a subordinate will be willing to accept and use to learn and change.

Firstly, make sure the evaluation is simple. Regardless of whether you deliver it in a spoken or written form, ensure you avoid filler words and aren’t too technical. 

Secondly, try to be as precise as possible. This can be achieved by stating examples of what happened, when it happened, how it happened, what was done, and what should have been done instead. You should also avoid using vague terms that can be used for everyone. For example, ‘he/she is great’ or ‘same as before/last month/last quarter’.

Thirdly, it’s important to write feedback to an employee in such a way that they are willing to accept it and that they can use it to grow and improve. This is known as sandwich feedback and starts with some positive feedback, adds things that the person should improve, and finishes on a positive note which gives the person an idea of how valuable they are to the team and the organization. This method provides employees with ideas on how to learn, where to learn from, what to focus more on, which mistakes to avoid, etc.

Finally, follow up on the progress over time. Be sure to set up realistic goals and communicate them to the subordinate. This is especially important to juniors and people who have recently joined the organization as they’re still unaware of the company culture and expectations. Make sure not to compare employees to each other, rather compare them to the image of what you consider to be an ideal member of your team and help them get there.

Here are some examples of proper and improper evaluation:

Read on: How to boost your employees’ performance with feedback

The entire evaluation process can be sped up and facilitated by using an app or platform for evaluations. The correct app should be able to record and keep track of progress for each employee over time in their own file in a safe and secure manner. It should also facilitate the sharing of feedback between employees and team leaders or managers. It will also provide team leaders with a reminder to evaluate subordinates and vice versa in a specific time frame. Vault-ERP is an ideal app that does all of this and more. It provides a clear picture of someone’s progress over time, stores all of the data safely in one place, and ensures feedback can easily be shared with employees, subordinates, and managers.

Read on: 8 ways Vault can help your HR department

Vault-ERP comes with a pre-set rating system in its Evaluations module. However, given its modularity these settings can be changed to suit your needs:

  • Exceptional – The employee delivers extraordinary accomplishments in their role. The employee questioned assumptions about problems and came up with new solutions. Performs far beyond the position requirements and demonstrated creativity and initiative. Aligns with the overall company goals.
  • Very good – The employee responds to the task exactly as required. All the tasks are done on time and at a high level. The employee is a team player and assists others if needed.
  • Satisfactory – Meets expectations, consistently performs the position requirements, delivers tasks (more initiative, creativity and teamwork should be encouraged).
  • Unsatisfactory – Needs to improve to satisfy the minimum position requirements, falls below the position requirements and standards.

For more instant feedback, Vault-ERP also provides Tokens of appreciation which can be awarded to coworkers regardless of their position within the company. You could give out tokens if someone helped you, gave you a great idea, shared knowledge with you, are doing a good job, spreading good vibes, and more.

In the end proper evaluation and communication will lead to personal, team, and company growth. An initial investment of time spent on training subordinates will continue to pay off over time. Team leads will be able to rely more on the rest of the team and delegate tasks. As a result, team members will have more knowledge, skill, and authority which will enable them to become more independent. The most important thing is to show appreciation and kindness to people as not only will it increase the overall job satisfaction in the team, but it will also keep the team together over a long period of time. Be sure to request a demo to find out more about Vault and how it can help employees in your organization.

 

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