Most lawsuits related to performance appraisals are based on a manager’s failure to support an evaluation. This is why it is important to keep a written record of employees’ behavior during the year. Potential lawsuits aren’t the only reason for good documentation. It also ensures that you conduct an accurate and effective appraisal discussion. For instance, you may have a worker who did a spectacular job on a team project but a mediocre job otherwise. Without documentation for the entire year, you might give a higher rating than the employee deserves.
You need to keep records on each and every employee—not only those who are driving you to distraction. Should a disgruntled employee bring a charge of discrimination against you, the court will check for critical incident reports on all employees—poor, average, and outstanding. If you have documentation only on your troublemaker, you will seem to be setting up the individual for termination, whether deserved or not.
Too much documentation can backfire, too. It provides more fertile ground a lawyer can plow to dig up an instance of discrimination.
The court will ask to read your documentation. So you need to be sure that your records don’t include hearsay; e.g., “Larry says Beth is starting to drink at lunch time.” Nor should they include opinions, even your own; e.g., “I don’t think Herb has what it takes to work here long term.” Your conclusion may be justified, but as a valid record it means nothing.
What is good documentation? It is a record of events that will enable a third party, someone not familiar with the situation, to come to the same conclusion you have. So you need to provide detailed descriptions of specific incidents and facts. It’s written because you can’t be expected to remember what happened nine or six or even one month before.
Here are some don’ts when documenting an employee’s performance.
- Don’t document rumors. You shouldn’t use them to evaluate an employee, so they don’t belong in your employee log.
- Don’t include personal comments about employees. Elaine dresses like a gothic heroine, and her hair is so stringy that she resembles pictures of Medusa. That has nothing to do with her job performance, unless her job involves a lot of contact with clients.
- Don’t quote others. Harry thinks Lucy is lazy. That shouldn’t go into your notes. However, you can report that Harry Reid reported that Lucy refused to lend a hand to colleagues faced with tight deadlines. She completed her work and then waited for her next assignment or walked about socializing rather than seeking out work.
The most important things you should be documenting are concrete successes, skills learned, problems solved, or—the reverse—careless mistakes, knowledge and skill gaps, or problems caused. Include observations from other managers who have worked with the employee, describing specifically what happened according to the third party.
Keep a record, too, of remarks—good and bad—from customers, clients, or others outside the firm.
The records you keep should reflect the standards against which the employees’ performance will be measured. That these standards are work related is something that the courts will expect. Courts will also investigate your goals and standards to be sure they are realistic. The Equal Employment Opportunity Com
mission’s Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection demand that standards be “valid,” or job related and, beyond that, that your firm’s appraisal system measures job performance accurately.