Whether you have several teleworkers on your team or have all your company operations done online, you’ll need to do performance reviews regularly.  However, the online workplace makes this task a little different from its more traditional predecessor.  There are some things you need to consider when proceeding with a performance review for online workers and collaborators.

Measure output.  Compared to a traditional workplace, the online workplace is more output-oriented rather than time-oriented.  It’s less about the hours you clocked in, and more about the finished work you submit.  You can measure this work based on both quality and quantity.

•  Quality.  Since quality is relative and hard to define, it’s best to have a standard ratings system in place.  You can measure work quality based on punctuality, accuracy, creativity, and other factors that are relevant to your team members’ work.  When you measure using qualitative factors, try to use a number system to rate it.  You can use a range of 1 to 10, with 1 as the lowest and 10 as the highest rating.  Be sure to follow this up with a short paragraph describing how you arrived at the rating.
• Quantity.  The amount of work each team member brings to the table is also important.  How many reports did she hand in?  How many presentations did she make?   These are other things you need to knowledge apart from one’s final accountable output.

Archivable.  Whether you conduct performance reviews as real-time dialogs or a one-way reports, it’s best to save them all in one place and interface.  If the performance review took place in an online voice conversation, have the review transcribed and/or summarized for future reference.    The same goes for the text chatting performance reviews.  Written reports are easy to archive, so you don’t have to worry about them.

Accessible.   Even if you’ve archived your performance reviews, it’s important to make the archives accessible to whoever wants to access it.  This could be a supervisor, you, or the employee you’re evaluating.  For this purpose, integrate your performance review archives with whatever collaboration tool you’re using.  If your collaboration tool allows for RSS or e-mail subscriptions, this is an easy way for you to let your employees access their respective reviews as soon as they arrive.

Readable.  All performance review reports and summaries should be brief, as well as adhering to online writing standards.  This means scannable formatting, such as including bulleted and numbered lists,  as well as bold typeface for emphasis.

Conducting an online performance review may not be something that you’re used to, but it gets easier when you have a system in place.