Have you ever thought:

“What questions to ask my employees to evaluate them better“?

Don’t worry. You are not alone. Most HR managers and consultants wonder exactly the same thing. And who can better answer this question than people who’ve been working in the HR industry for many years?

It ‘s really the perfect question that gets right to the core of performance. It’s definitely indirect, you’re not evaluating the

person answering the question, but they’re telling you who the top performers are in your organization. You can make slight changes to this question to bring it back to your group: If you could only have one person on this team as a project partner, who would it be and why? What you will find when asking questions like this in your organization is who is really getting the work done, and who are your most valuable. Many times the names that come up aren’t your highest titled individuals or highest paid individuals!

BlackbookHR just came out with a really cool tool that actually shows this in an organization real-time, side-by-side with your actual organization chart, and it shows you a picture of your organization chart that is based on influence, not the title. It’s super cool, and telling! To have a tool that actually shows you who your employees believe are the most important people in the organization in getting the work done, not who you are told is the most important, is very powerful.

Employee evaluations are one of the most important aspects of an employee’s engagement, development and tenure with a company. They are often overlooked because development and work-related conversations are uncomfortable for managers and leaders of teams. Instead of focusing on their performance, I would focus on their development and engagement levels and goals. Metrics are often already tied to an employee’s productivity or success level. Their review score already pre-determined by a metric or score in reviewing an employee’s acceptable level of performance. The question I would ask them is, “What ways can I help you achieve your professional goals and aspirations with our company?” 

Asking this question gives you insights into their personal expectations, how they value their individual contribution and where they align themselves with the organization. Managers are clued into how the individual views their contributions within the organization for the long term. Managers can better understand career goals and how they align with where the manager sees the employee growing. This question puts the employee in the driver’s seat of their own individual engagement, future career and success with your organization instead of just focusing on the past and how their performance is measured and evaluated by their management team. This is an important component of employee engagement and retention. Employees need to understand that they are just as responsible for their own current and future success within an organization. It’s a joint effort between manager and employee.

A unique question for performance evaluation, but if you have the right person in the right role a question like this uncovers what resources and support from the organization can drive employee performance. It would relieve pressure placed on the manager and employee for the evaluation. Instead, this question focuses on what is needed to have performance aligned to business objectives.