At many clubs, mid-year is the time when annual staff appraisals take place. With staff being the clubs biggest resource and biggest cost, it’s important that managers take annual appraisals seriously and make every to use the process as a tool for improving performance and clarifying roles and goals with the clubs business and strategic plans.
A word of warning though. Managers must emphasise the positive during formal reviews. A study of 19,000 employees worldwide by CEB found that whilst a formal performance review that has a focus on performance strengths had a clearly positive impact on performance, a review with an emphasis on performance weaknesses has a highly negative impact on performance. (In fact it was near disastrous at -26.8%). This may be no surprise to most but managers should make sure that anyone who is delegated the responsibility of reviewing staff in their department is aware of this.
In clubs, one of the most overlooked people for a performance appraisal is often the Golf Professional. In a 2014 survey of PGA of Australia members, 54% of respondents reported they had not received a performance appraisal in the past 12 months. This may often be because the Professional is a contractor. With a PGA Professional being expected to perform an important leadership and organisational role it is critical that this person is not overlooked, regardless of whether their contract is up for renewal any time soon. In short, they deserve the feedback.
You can find a Staff Appraisal and a PGA Appraisal form (as provided by the PGA of Australia) under the workforce management section of the Club Support website.