Evaluating, rewarding and retaining employees is an on-going process of personnel management.  Each employee should be evaluated periodically (at least annually).  This is of benefit to both the employer and the employee.  The employer needs to know if the employee is meeting the requirement outlined in the job description.  The employee needs to know where he/she stands relative to the expectations of the employer.

All employees with similar responsibilities should be measured against the same set of criteria.  The employees need to know what these criteria are.  Also, the rewards for meeting these criteria need to be outlined.  A major factor in retaining employees is full disclosure of employer expectations and the rewards associated with meeting these expectations.  These expectations need to be within the realm of the job description.

Many small value-added businesses ventures are very similar to production agriculture operations.  So information on wage levels and rewards systems can readily be transferred production agriculture operations to these value-added ventures.  Information is available from surveys on Wages and Benefits for Farm Employees and Bonus Plans for Farm Employees.

When considering compensation packages, you might be interested in Nonqualifed Deferred Compensation: Not Just for the Big Corporations.

To learn more about employee evaluation and employee rewards and retention, see the information in the box at the right.