Staff appraisals

Establishing a great team, and maintaining their successfulness and general happiness, is a crucial part of running a profitable business. You might have hired staff members who have a wealth of experience and the perfect demeanour for your clinic, but you cannot expect the team to manage itself from the point of hiring onwards. Regular meetings with your staff, both as a team and on an individual basis, are essential for keeping in touch with your staff, and will help you solve small problems before they become big issues. Staff appraisals can be an emotional time for both you and your team. Your staff members could feel elated after positive feedback, or there could be disappointment and perhaps even tears if your comments are less favourable. But, both praise and constructive criticism at regular intervals should help your team members improve their skills, and so should be seen as helping them to develop their career. LET YOUR STAFF MEMBERS HAVE INPUT Staff reviews or appraisals shouldn’t just be one-sided. If you spend the allotted time simply running through your assessments and issuing targets, then you won’t get to hear how your staff feel, you may miss out on useful suggestions from them, and you are unlikely to make your staff members feel like you have an interest in them or value their feedback. Some staff members may find appraisals intimidating, and may struggle to find the right words in the middle of a review meeting if put on the spot and asked for impromptu comment. Give your staff members time to think about what they’d like to, or need to say, before your meeting. Consider making a list of questions or prompts so they have a better idea of the topics you’d like to discuss. For example, you could ask your team to make notes on what they consider to be their achievements and failures, or how they would like to see their role develop over the coming months or years. A review should also not be a meeting where you simply record your staff member’s comments and give them no feedback yourself. You will make your staff feel uneasy if you hold back on what you think of their performance altogether, as they will be left wondering whether they have said the right thing, or worrying about saying or doing something inappropriate. To put their minds at ease, give them responses to their comments, let them know whether you agree with them, and give reasons for your judgements. If there is mutual understanding between employers and employees, then you should hopefully have a team of staff who feel that they are working for someone who cares about their opinions and values their input. This in turn, should lead to staff loyalty, and a positive attitude across the team. HOW TO SET GOALS Do you set the bar low, so staff easily achieve targets and get the glow of achievement on a regular basis? Do you set the bar so high it’s impossible to reach, but staff members can then be constantly pushed harder, to achieve more? Achieving the right balance, creating targets that take into account both your team’s abilities and your company targets, isn’t easy, but if you get it right, it will encourage your staff, and boost your company revenue and profile. If your clinic is an established business, you will have a precedent to follow, as you will have monitored team and individual goals before. Previous results, management  reports and forecasting should give you a good idea of what is achievable by your team, and what figures you need to achieve for your business to progress. Raise targets incrementally instead of in steep jumps, as this will look much fairer to your team, and it is less likely to bring about panic in under-performing team members. Similarly, if your targets are never reached, try lowering them in small increments, so you do not suddenly see all of your team overachieve and earn commission you weren’t expecting to have to pay. If your clinic is a new business, then you will likely be setting your initial targets from company financial projections rather than known staff performance. In this case, remember to evaluate your targets on a regular basis, and adjust them where necessary. Don’t just pluck figures out of the air and leave them in place long after you know what your team are likely to, or able to achieve. DEALING WITH THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY You should always try to put forward any criticisms you have in a constructive way. This doesn’t mean you have to gloss over something that has bothered you, but rather than simply stating what a staff member has done wrong, you must offer suggestions for how issues may be overcome, discuss how they feel about the issue, and come to an agreement about how the problems will be addressed. You must also state exactly what the consequences will be if your staff member fails to meet their side of the bargain, whether that be a subsequent warning, change of role, or even a dismissal. You should record such agreements in writing, so if the same issue arises at a later date, you can remind your staff member of your agreement. If you deal with staff problems in this way, then when you do have to let a team member go, it should not be a shock to them, and it will make the process easier for you to handle. It should also help that member of staff accept their fate. If you do not deal with issues in this way, and do not offer clear warnings or get your staff member’s buy-in to the proposed plan of action, then you may find that a staff member disagrees with you and attempts to argue their case. You could end up in a time-consuming dispute, which is unlikely to boost the morale of the remaining team. Hopefully, you will not have to deal with the dismissal of staff members very often, and will instead be raising only minor issues, if any. Remember that appraisals are about praise and reward, too. If a certain staff member has excelled themselves, give them the praise, or the bonus or raise they deserve. To ensure good team morale, don’t just praise certain individuals; if the team have hit their targets and have done a great job, reward them as a team and celebrate your success together – it will help to build a loyal, enthusiastic team that will be with your business for the long haul. John Sellers is the managing director and owner of ARC Recruitment and along with his team has helped numerous organisations within the industry grow their businesses by hiring the most talented aesthetic professionals on the market.