People Management
An important part of being a good manager is setting clear expectations for team members. But all too often, the first time a manager openly shares his or her expectations with a new employee is while conducting that employee's first annual performance review--which is a full 12 months too late.
One way to ensure that the conversation about expectations gets started early is to go over your criteria for performance evaluations with employees soon after they start. You can get the discussion started by sharing the evaluation form you'll be using when it comes time to conduct the employee's annual performance review. That way, your new direct report gets a chance to see exactly what you'll be keeping an eye out for throughout the year.
This works best when you have a customized evaluation form for each unique position on your team. For instance, an evaluation form for the developers on your staff might include areas to comment on the quality of employees' builds, interoperability of the code they write, and so on. A form for team leads might include some of the same areas with an added focus on architecture, leadership, and mentoring.
Though creating unique forms like these takes time, they're far more helpful than the generic evaluation forms that most HR departments make available to managers. Indeed, the process of creating position-specific evaluation forms can help you start the expectations discussion not only with new employees, but also with ones who have been on staff for a while.
