Employee performance reviews: a key component for organizational success

This week, an MGMA Stat poll asked healthcare leaders whether their organization conducts formal employee performance evaluations. Fair question and an important one. 

Overwhelmingly, respondents are conducting formal performance evaluations:  81% of respondents answered, "yes, for every position" and 11% responded, "yes, for some positions." Only 8% do not conduct these evaluations. 

The fact is, employee performance evaluations are misunderstood. When done poorly or misused, they prove to be inimical to your organization's core values and goals. In regards to this, business literature opines from insulting and destructive to positive and motivating for optimal employee and organizational performance. 

Susan A. Murphy's book Maximizing Performance Management: Leading Your Team to Success provides a strong foundation for the group wanting to achieve optimal performance. In these times of constant change, leveraging your human resource potential through performance management will help your organization survive and thrive. Conducting employee performance evaluations is not an end unto itself, but rather, a component of a comprehensive organizational performance management program.

Here are a couple of reasons why so many groups conduct performance evaluations:

• Performance evaluations are an invaluable tool for addressing underperforming employees. Their purpose is to help drive individual and organizational performance to the highest level. In dealing with underperforming employees, an MGMA expert reports on how performance evaluations provide invaluable feedback for underperforming employees, which can lead to a higher level of performance.
• Alternatively, performance evaluations enable you to help your highest-performing employees soar to greater heights. You can recognize employees for their outstanding work and specific achievements, review goals attained and establish stretch goals for the future. For managers, it is a time to nurture. 

For those of you conducting performance evaluations, ensure that you are maximizing their value for every employee and for your organization. Assess the tools you are using and the approach you are taking. 

By doing so, your employee engagement and organizational success will soar!

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Kenneth T. Hertz, FACMPE
Principal Consultant 
MGMA Consulting 
khertz@mgma.com