Human Resource Blog

Employee Performance Review

Can an employee get two performance reviews from two different managers in a one-month period? (If the first manager who gave the review quit and a new guy decides to give the employee one)?

-Thanks

There is no state or federal law that addresses the uses of performance reviews or evaluations.

Within the Human Resources field, this is an area covered by “best practices.” Best practices are simply procedures that have proven so effective over the years that they have been adopted by most companies.

It is not at all unusual for new supervisors to evaluate the performance of each employee and discuss it with them. In fact, it’s usually a sign of good management. The technique that you describe is well within the best practices in the field of Human Resources.

The new supervisor may be doing employees a favor by letting them know how their performance ranks with him now, instead of waiting 6 months or a year to address any problems.

You don’t say why the old supervisor left the company, but it’s quite possible it was because his performance, or the performance of his department, was not meeting company standards. In that situation, the new manager would be expected to improve the performance of all employees within the department.

Suppose the previous supervisor, Todd, leaves and is replaced by Mary. Todd expected salaried employees to work 6 hours per day. Mary expects salaried employees to work 8 hours per day. Under Todd’s performance evaluation, an employee who worked 7 hours per day was doing a super job. It’s only fair for Mary to let the same employee know that he or she is not meeting Mary’s expectations.

This supervisor should be commended for addressing performance issues early, and in writing, after discussing them with the worker.