It’s performance evaluation time, which just means paperwork and uncomfortable conversations to power through, right?
Wrong.
When done right, performance appraisals can foster growth, engagement, and action plans for improvement for your nurses.
Stick with us as we explore the topic, share tips to optimize your meetings, discuss areas to avoid, and provide some concrete examples of nurse performance evaluations.
What is a nurse performance evaluation?
Performance evaluations in nursing are in-depth assessments of nurses’ job performance. They cover a range of components (performance requirements) that can be quantified and rated.
Furthermore, they provide the structure and the setting for nurses and their supervisors to identify, specify, and discuss strengths and areas for improvement.
Importance of providing feedback to your nursing staff
Implementing performance evaluations of your nursing staff is essential in strengthening nurse retention.
A lack of career advancement and feeling undervalued are among the top reasons most commonly cited for nurse turnover. These concerns can easily be identified and addressed through productive performance evaluation conversations.
Performance evaluations can provide guidance, encouragement, and appreciation to nurses. Additionally, performance evaluation goals are established, providing nurses with concrete expectations to reach for.
When your nursing evaluations are perceived as opportunities for growth and invitations for nurse participation, you are taking steps to establish a work culture that can aid your nurse retention efforts in the following ways:
- Nurses feel valued for their contributions at work.
- Nurses feel supported because their input and feedback are taken seriously.
- Nurses are invited to take steps to advance their careers within your healthcare facility.
5 tips for effective nurse performance evaluations
So, how do you ensure nurses perceive your performance evaluations as growth opportunities?
Productive performance evaluations require time. They are a worthy investment because having motivated, confident, and competent nurses working for you creates a ripple effect that impacts work culture, retention, turnover, patient outcomes, and more.
We’ve compiled a list of five tips to help your nurse performance evaluations be balanced and effective:
1. Provide personalized, actionable feedback
Know your nurses beyond the numbers and seek to show it by giving customized feedback. Take the time to observe them occasionally, and consider what patients and other clinicians say about them—the bad and the good.
Including specific examples in nursing appraisals shows nurses that they are not just numbers to the facility; it shows them that they are seen.
2. Recognize progress and improvement
Review a nurse’s prior performance evaluation while writing the current one.
This will help you identify improvements that you may have missed. Recognizing their progress and providing encouragement show them that their effort to improve was worthwhile and can increase their motivation.
3. Ask them what their career advancement goals are
Nurses looking for career advancement will appreciate the opportunity to share their goals.
By becoming aware of their goals, you can—at the very least—make a note to consider them when advanced positions open up within your facility. Even better, you can help guide them to meet those goals by connecting them to resources, programs, and initiatives within the facility.
Knowledge of a nurse’s career goals and efforts to reach them will also help you in writing a recommendation letter for internal advancement opportunities.
A shortage of nurse leadership in healthcare facilities stresses your newer nurses.
Use performance evaluations as strategic tools to raise your nurses up within your facility. This engenders loyalty and retention, which keeps experienced nurses on staff, benefiting your newer nurses.
4. Work with nurses to address areas for improvement
Do more than give a rating and critique for the areas needing improvement. Take the opportunity to ask for their own reflections on the identified areas. By inviting their opinions on areas of improvement, you’re setting expectations for their participation and accountability.
Work with your nurses to develop a plan of actionable steps they can take to improve. Perhaps these areas of improvement can tie into their career advancement goals.
5. Follow up regularly to track progress
Don’t leave your nurses hanging until the next performance review. Set reminders or recurring meetings on your calendar to follow up with them individually. Use these check-ins to track their progress on the plan.
Nurse performance evaluation examples
Not all nurse performance evaluation templates include space for writing personalized notes. Many are simply columns with options for you to select their rating. If that’s the case in your facility, we encourage you to write your observations on a separate piece of paper to share with your nurses.
Don’t know where to start?
Here are some examples of staff nurse performance evaluations to help jump-start your thoughts.
Examples of specific, personalized feedback:
- Katie gives thorough shift handoff reports. Even if it’s the end of her shift, and she’s ready to go home, she doesn’t rush the process and takes the time to answer any questions the incoming nurse has.
- Diego excels at patient communication. He introduces himself to his patients and explains to them what he is doing so they understand what to expect, which helps reassure them in stressful situations.
Examples of recognition of progress and improvement:
- Jackie’s charting errors have reduced by __ percent over the last six months. This was identified as an area for improvement in her previous performance evaluation, and her efforts support a satisfactory rating.
- Vivika has successfully trained three new nurses over the last four months, establishing herself as a leadership figure among the nursing staff. She is recommended for the facility’s “Developing Nurse Leaders” program.
Examples of areas for improvement:
- Doris has identified four strategies to help her arrive on time for her shifts.
- Marcus will work to improve his didactic knowledge by signing up for a refresher course.
Common mistakes to avoid in nurse performance reviews
Be thoughtful about what you say and how you act. Remember that communication comes in more forms than just speaking. Your body language and attitude convey messages as well.
The following are five common pitfalls to avoid.
Focusing only on the negative
Whatever you do, don’t get tunnel vision on the negatives. Too much time spent discussing the negatives can demotivate a talented nurse who simply has some areas that need improvement.
Using generalized feedback
Your nurses will know if you are giving generalized feedback. If you can’t provide specific examples, you’re signaling to them—intentionally or not—that the evaluation process isn’t valuable and that maybe they aren’t either.
Rushing the evaluation process
Patients complain when they feel rushed by their healthcare providers.
The reason?
Rushing communicates that the next things people have to do or the tasks they just came from are more important than what they are doing now. This makes people on the receiving end feel they are just steps on the staircase the others have to climb—not a good feeling.
If you’re in a hurry, are you really going to listen to nurses’ goals and form action plans for improvement and career advancement?
Comparing nurses to their peers
Comparing nurses to their peers establishes an uncomfortable and unofficial sense of rivalry. Rivalry is contrary to the sort of work culture you are trying to foster. Keep the feedback focused on the individual nurse.
Waiting until performance evaluations to address issues
Waiting to address an issue until the biannual performance evaluation can lead to a buildup of a bad habit or issue that will be more difficult to resolve later.
This delay in providing feedback on a concern can feel like a “Gotchya!” moment to a nurse. Either they don’t remember it, or they’ve been thinking it’s fine for the last several months until they suddenly learn it’s not fine at the evaluation.
Address issues when they come to light and use performance evaluations and routine check-ins to track and evaluate nurses’ progress.
Performance evaluations impact staffing
Productive performance evaluations lead to engaged nursing staff. Maybe it’s time for you to evaluate how you give performance evaluations and look for ways to facilitate a better outcome. Reflect on these questions:
- Do you know your nurses well enough to provide individualized feedback?
- Did your nurses actively participate in the last performance evaluation discussions?
- Do you have a vacancy that may be an attractive advancement opportunity for one of your nurses?
- Are you tracking progress in areas of improvement over time?
- Do you have regular follow-ups with your nurses?
Staffing shortages and vacancies can lead many clinicians to feel overwhelmed by high patient-to-nurse ratios, which can negatively impact their performance.
What can you do?
Lighten the burden, grow your nursing staff, and cultivate motivated, experienced, and happy nurses by providing effective performance evaluations and using per diem nurses and nursing assistants to fill shift gaps.
Read our “Nursa Can Help You Fill Critical Shifts Fast” guide to get started, or explore how your facility can cover unfilled shifts on Nursa’s per diem staffing platform.
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