Inform the employee of how, when, and why they will be evaluated.
Evaluate the employee based on the standards explained in number 1.
After the evaluation tools and systems have been developed it is important to let your employees know about these systems, when they will be evaluated, and how they will be evaluated. They should know exactly what you are looking for. For example what improvements you expect a new employee to make during their probationary period, or what skills you expect all of your managers to have. By informing them of these things, you have a reasonable right to expect to see these results when you next evaluate your employees. If the employee fails to meet these expectations then you will have the legal grounds to make a decision to either discipline or terminate an employee.
Once employees are aware of your evaluation systems the next step is to conduct the actual evaluation. This process should not be seen as a quick process that is done once every six months or once a year. Instead it should be seen as an ongoing process. In order to get the most out of the evaluation process, and to support the administrative decisions that you make regarding the hiring, firing, promotion, and raises given to employees, continuous and complete documentation of employee performance is needed. This includes documenting both positive employee performance issues and examples and negative employee performance issues and examples. Events should be documented as they happen in order to avoid omissions and mistakes in documenting the facts of the situation. Employers should maintain a written log of critical events that occur throughout the year. The purpose of all of this documentation is to keep the supervisor focused on the range of behaviors and results that the employee is exhibiting and/or achieving. This will help a lot during the evaluation period, because the recollection of events were only based on what can be retrieved form the supervisor’s memory, then normal performance may be overlooked because of extreme situations that have made a large impression in their mind. Documentation will also help provide employers with specific examples of behaviors that were used in making the decision to promote, give a raise, deny a raise or promotion, or to terminate an employee. These key pieces of evidence can also be used to defend an organization against wrongful termination suits, or complaints about discriminatory practices.