3 Fixes for better Performance Reviews in 2017 According to Gallup, About 37% employees in the United States work from home, accounting for two days every month.

Any time of the year is not as exciting for employees as of February. This is the time when almost every company reviews its employees' performance. The year-end review may not be very enjoyable for the managers, while f or the employees it is a confusing phase. Log-in and log-out time, system login, attendance, leaves taken, interaction with teammates, knowledge upgrade, skill-set improvement, etc. gets monitored and accordingly, managers come to a conclusion as to what percentage if hike should they give on their team member's present drawn salary.

According to Gallup, About 37% employees in the United States work from home, accounting for two days every month. This telecommuting percentage soared up by 103% during the past ten years, as researched by Flexjobs. In the U.S. it is becoming all the more difficult to evaluate the employee performance as most of them are remote employees or telecommuters. In Gen-X, the term "The Millennials'has become very prominent, given that the baby boomers fresh out of college are joining the workforce. This needs improvement in performance management standards that has been established in the past years.

Gen-Xers as well as Millennial employees believe in work-in-life rather than life-in-work. Their interaction with their managers is different, and they like to question and get quick feedback. They will not like to stick to ground rules when taking up a new assignment. About 62% of the millennials prefer talking things out with their managers about anything that relates to work as well non-work-related matters. This kind of employees crave for growth and not rewards. Performance reviews of such employees may need a lot of fixing. The major 3 fixes for better performance reviews in this year should be:

• Keep company goals at par with employee expectations

While, in the past years, professionals expected good-looking offices, with the best infrastructure, conveyance, and bi-monthly or yearly bonus; the present time employees demand a work-life balance, with a reasonable number of leaves and location transfer flexibility. This requires employee-manager engagement, which touches upon a team's and employee's overarching goals. Rockefeller Habits by Gazelles can integrate into the Employee Opinion Surveys to put the staff focused on its goals. Systems like Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS Traction) can report the accountability of each employee in 5 major aspects of their work as per their discussed goals. Track sales and goods and labor costs by using EOS Traction through weekly scorecards.

Managers should set goals, scores for their employees and set rules to achieve the goals, and put them in front of their employees. Day-to-day assignment strategy may not be easy. So, as a manager, you would need to place goals for remote workers separately and see the accurate productivity rate of their full-time team members and the quality of that productivity. Identify and introduce opportunities for future work betterment. Avoid rewarding people who cannot achieve goals due to time wasted in hard work but no signs of smart work. Here, your performance-management or evaluation decision should also depend on the face time put in by employees, besides their output. So, you ensure that your team members feel valued, through evaluation of their performance or involvement as well as through time spent or engagement with them. Here are some tips we've implemented in our own remote organization that should become a standard for any team.

• Evaluation based on the core values of the management

The relationship between the management and the employees is just like any other relationship, which is based on pure give and takes. The basic fundamentals are: If none of the parties feels valued, chances are it will look out for returns elsewhere. As a manager, set your expectations of your team members and mention the same to them. Now, if they do not know or care to learn what your business ethics are and how you would like to drive your team goals, you may think on lines of hiring anyone else like them or even raising the salary bar of the existing ones.

The Absence of core values in your team may not help you to prepare a healthy, and productive culture which counts in people's responsibility towards their work with little to no supervision. In 2017, make a plan which allows only skilled and co-operative professionals in your team. Even in the case of remote workers or telecommuters, hire the ones that can show experience in working from home before, so that your work does not get hampered due to confused professional beliefs.

Segregate the leanings you have of the traits of successful employees from unsuccessful employees. Match the identified traits found in the highly performing employees with your candidates. If you understand your company's core values, look for candidates who embody them and identify some in your team who stand for those values. The best you could do is to recognize their contribution in a bi-weekly, bi-monthly or annual meet-up. This honor in front of the senior management uplifts their motivation to deliver even better in the future.

• Frequent feedback is mandatory

It is difficult to say that younger employees working from home or remote workers will not expect direct contact with the management leadership. As far as the response to performance review goes, almost 69 % of workers in the age group 18 to 34 have considered it to be flawed (as per a report by fastcompany.com). Weekly surveys mean they are being asked for their feedback on the company by their manager and not their boss. Apart from these 3 initiatives, there are various other effective plans of action that you can take to learn about employee sentiments. Through emotional intelligence track which members are achieving their objectives.

Weekly work feedback should be given on the first day of the next week, meaning every Monday. Regular meetings should clear the air and bring up issues creeping up in your teams you may not be aware of. A one-on-one and all-member meeting can be useful in addressing the issues, questioning, suggesting and publicly recognizing the contributions of the team members.

Appreciation at work, in front of others, for work or non-work related factors can fuel confidence in your employees and uplift their performance. Skills and attitude are not same, but the combination of both makes a perfect employee. Know when to modify your employee performance reviews based on what your employees are both in nature and at work. Do anything in your capacity as a manager to bring positive employees onboard.