Sample performance Management appraisal

Effective church management uses the performance appraisal process to help manage employee performance and achievement of ministry goals. It is important to have well trained church managers and a structured process to document church employee performance and give performance appraisals.

A well done performance appraisal process can be a positive experience and help the employee see how what he or she does contributes to organizational goals. If not done well, the performance appraisal can be a very stressful time and one of the most difficult conversations of the year.

The performance appraisal process should be a time to reflect on the last year and celebrate successes. It should also be used as a time to course correct if an employee has gotten off track. Reinforcing the positive and celebrating the successes can influence future positive behaviors.

Statistics show that an estimated 40% of workers never receive performance evaluations. And for the 60% of the workers who do, most are poorly done. Wow, what a scary thing!

The fact is that employees want and need to know if they’re doing a good job. A formal performance appraisal process forces managers to communicate both good and bad performance results to the employees.

Goals don’t just happen—they need structured systems and processes, and the performance appraisal process is an important part of the cycle.

Example Church Staff Performance Appraisal

The first step in creating a church personnel evaluation form is identifying those things (dimension measures) that the employee will be assessed on.

This is done by looking at the values statement and guiding principles as well as those employee characteristics that are important to successful performance.

For example, a church value may be teamwork or customer service and it may be identified that successful performance is measured by an employee’s ability to work with others, communicate well, or possess certain job skills.

An example of common dimension measures of performance are: Teamwork, communication, attendance, job knowledge and completion of goals. These dimensions should be church-specific and identified globally as part of the strategic planning process.

Each of the measures should have a description that is clear and understandable for the employee. For example:

Teamwork: Employee values team interactions and works effectively with others. Is a team player and helps encourage and orient new team members. Employee is able to balance personal effort and project team effort.