STREAMLINED, DIGITAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS – HALOGEN

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

STREAMLINED, DIGITAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS – HALOGEN

During my many years in CPA firm management, we were always doing our best to continually improve the firms performance evaluation process. Until recent years, this usually meant that we would find a new and better form to use for staff, managers and the administrative team members and try to get the reviewers to summarize the information and communicate the results in as timely a manner as possible. It was never easy to make it easy!

For many years, I actually read EACH person’s reviews (usually six or seven evaluation forms on each person) then summarized the scoring and written comments for the partner/manager who would be conducting the review meeting. When you have 40 or 50 people in a firm, this is a HUGE task.

Then, thank goodness, we moved to a digital form, using Word, and summarizing became a game of cut & paste. Still very time consuming.

A few years back, my firm took the recommendation of Kathy Anthony of O’Sullivan Creel in Pensacola and researched and adopted Halogen Software e-Appraisal.

Recently, I was talking with Andrea Ballard of Peterson Sullivan, (Seattle, approx. 80 professionals). Andrea is the firms Director of Human Resources and she was telling me about their experience with Halogen. I thought you might find it interesting, especially if you are looking to update and improve your performance evaluation methods.

Andrea noted:

“We selected Halogen in December 2008. Up until that time we were doing everything manually. We sent a Word form to the raters and everyone typed-in their information and then I cut and pasted. It took a huge amount of time. We also didn’t feel like giving performance feedback only one time per year was very effective.

I looked at several options before I selected Halogen. It was the multi-rater feature for professional firms that sold me and I also like all of the available options for customization.

We didn’t roll-out the new software with the annual evaluations. Instead, we first used it for the after-the-engagement project evaluations so that our team members received immediate feedback.”

I know there are a lot of different products used by many of you in the CPA firm world. If you would like to share your story or have valuable advice for other HR Directors, firm administrators, or managing partners, please feel free to contact me.