My employee assessment process

Problem

Assessing your team is an important part of a manager's life. Over the years, I have updated my process to what it is below.

Actions taken

I assess my direct reports on three aspects - technical skills, team orientation, and culture fit.

=> 1/ Technical assessment Beyond pure code quality, I rate how people fit into the technical culture I want to establish. For example, I want people to make small and regular commits, multiple times a day. I have been using GitPrime, which gives me useful metrics based on people's coding activities. I use that data to confirm sentiment and detect when people do nothing, so I can praise people, check their alignment with Datto's tech culture, and gain insights about any potential coaching needs.

=> 2/ Team Orientation I want a team of team players, so who better than peers to evaluate that? I send out a survey to my direct reports' peers and ask three questions.

1. Rate your peer's code quality from 1-5 (this is linked to the technical assessment above).
2. In which areas is xxx doing well?
3. How likely would you start a new team with xxx? (NPS-like, scale 0-10)

=> 3/ Cultural Fit I am looking for people who take initiative. Every month, I talk with my direct reports about how they have exceeded expectations lately. As I do not work with them day to day, I want them to bring it up with me. People's judgment on what "exceeding expectations" is can be very useful information. I also constantly try to evaluate their attitude towards stretched goals and how they react when asked to do extra tasks.

Finally, I talk to the team's product owners and scrum masters. They are the ones working with my team day-to-day and are an incredible source of insights. I try to build a fruitful relationship with them so they can speak freely and without being solicited. I also send them a survey during appraisal season.

Useful links

GitPrime => https://www.gitprime.com/