Evaluating Laboratory Staff Performance

Performance evaluations are often considered a nuisance by laboratory managers, but a carefully developed and implemented evaluation process can have a very positive effect on employee performance. It provides a formal setting for discussions between a supervisor and employee, it provides long-term documentation on employee performance, and it provides a method for ranking employees when assessing the distribution of merit-based increases in salary. This paper details a method of employee evaluation that has evolved over a long career of supervising fabrication-facility personnel.