How do appraisals and reviews work?
I’ve recently discovered that lots of people don’t have a clear idea of how appraisals and reviews are meant to work. I’ve not had much formal training, so I’m not an expert by any means! But I am a manager, and I’ve also learned a lot from being ‘managed upward’ by one of my team — who is excellent at taking responsibility for his own development.
In this post, I’ll share what I’ve learned from being ‘on the other side of the table’, to help you navigate your way through the world of appraisals, objectives and salary reviews. It’ll differ a bit depending on where you work, and what you do, but most of the principles should hold firm wherever you are.
So… what is an appraisal?
Appraisals (or ‘annual reviews’) are the point in the year where you and your manager reflect on your contribution to your company and your personal development, discuss your goals for the future, and agree a set of objectives which will help both you and the company.
In my experience, appraisals usually happen about once a year. If you have a probationary period when you start your job, usually your first appraisal is effectively your end-of-probation review — where you identify the next set of things to focus on in your role.
If you haven’t got an appraisal in the diary and it’s coming up to a year since you had one, why not ask your line manager to schedule sometime? Managers are humans too, and sometimes lose track of time, so don’t be afraid to ask! Asking for a review is also a good signal to your manager that you care about your own career development, which is definitely useful for them to know.
How do appraisals work?
Before your appraisal:
- Decide whether it would be useful to seek 360° feedback. Would it help you understand your performance and where you need to develop? If feedback would be useful, your company might have a policy on how this is done. Alternatively, you could ask your manager to collect feedback for you anonymously — or you could ask your colleagues, managers and direct reports for feedback yourself, if necessary.
- Reflect on your most recent set of objectives or personal development goals. Have you achieved them? If not, what do you think you could do differently in future? Did you achieve anything over and above your objectives?
- Think about what you want to achieve in the next year. Where do you want to develop? What help will you need from your manager or other colleagues? Are there training courses or other external events which would help you? It’s worth being prepared, as it’s easier to discuss specific asks with your manager than just saying you want some training.
Your company may have a system or form where you should record your thoughts and share them with your manager prior to your appraisal. If not, you might want to write some notes and share them with your manager in advance, just so they can be prepared too.
At your appraisal:
- You’ll discuss your past performance: your objectives, what you’ve achieved over the last year, and feedback which your colleagues have provided for you. Your manager will also give their own feedback if they haven’t already.
- You’ll also talk about your personal goals for the year ahead, and your manager’s thoughts on how they’d like you to progress. Based on this, you’ll work out what help and support you’ll need to succeed.
- Your appraisal is also a good place to discuss whether there is a case for your salary being reviewed. For more on this, see below.
- Start to agree on a set of objectives for the coming year, which you can work on after the meeting is done.
Companies and people can treat appraisals quite differently, from a very formal meeting to ‘just a chat’. But even if you feel like you’ve just had a chat, it’s worth writing down the conclusions and objectives you feel have come out of it, so you can refer back to them, and discuss them with your manager, where relevant, at a later date. I usually forget what’s been said, if I don’t write it down!
After your appraisal:
- Write up your objectives, and the actions and targets which will help your work towards them. It’s worth identifying some short term actions and targets, say within a couple of months, as if you allow for everything to take a whole year, you might find you never get round to doing anything! Your company might have a system they use for this, but if not, a simple table will do the job.
- Share your draft objectives back with your manager, who may suggest or make changes before approving them.
- If relevant, your manager will discuss your salary review with HR or their boss (depending on what your company’s process is), before letting you know whether an increase has been approved. More on this below.
In between appraisals:
- Try to discuss progress against your objectives with your manager regularly. It’s up to you and your manager how / how often you do this — but it should be no less than every 3 months otherwise you might lose track!
You might set up specific meetings to do this, or you might do it in the course of other regular catch-ups about work. It’s up to you and your manager to find something that works for you — and it’ll depend on your individual role.
- If you’re stuck, unhappy or your role / situation changes, don’t feel you have to wait for a scheduled discussion to talk to your manager. Just let them know and set up a meeting or a call to talk about it in more detail. They want you to be productive and happy, because that reflects well on them, but if they’re busy you can help by suggesting solutions as well as bringing them problems.
Other types of reviews
Sometimes, you might feel that your role is changing significantly. This might be a result of your own development impacting the contribution you make to the company, or it might be as a result of external factors (for example, taking on new responsibilities, or handing over responsibilities to other people).
In these cases, you should ask for your job description and salary to be reviewed.
This may happen at the same time as your appraisal (because you’ll naturally be thinking about how you’re developing) but that isn’t always the case. You don’t need to wait for an annual appraisal to ask for a review!
Reviewing your job description
If your responsibilities change significantly whilst you work somewhere, it makes sense to ask your manager to update your job description.
Bear in mind that the day-to-day specifics of most of our jobs change a bit all the time, and that it’s not usually useful to make changes to everyone’s job descriptions that much! Reviewing your job description is best reserved for cases where you feel the role that you do has changed significantly from what it used to be.
‘Significant changes’ to your responsibilities might be things like:
- Taking on responsibility for a new recurrent task, project or area which is outside the scope of your previous job description;
- Providing new technical or professional expertise which the company needs;
- Starting to manage other people or lead a team;
- Owning a budget or being responsible for a company objective or revenue line.
Your manager may ask you for help in updating your job description — because you are the person who knows this best! They will probably then suggest or make any changes they feel necessary, and will likely need to submit the updated job description to HR for approval and for the company’s records.
In some companies, there will be a formal review process for job descriptions. In others (particularly smaller companies), it will probably be much more informal — for example, you might just share a few bullet points with your manager via email. But it’s always worth keeping track of what your job involves, as these changes show how your contribution to the company is changing over time.
A significant change to your job description could also involve a change of title or a salary review. If you and your manager think your title should change as a result of your changing role, your manager will probably need to ask for approval from HR before agreeing this, to ensure this is being done consistently across the company (and is kept up to date in company records).
Asking for a salary review
Some companies will automatically review your salary regularly, but not all do. As well as ‘cost of living’ increases (which usually apply to all staff, and are more common in the public sector), your line manager will consider the following when deciding whether you should have a pay increase:
- Whether your responsibilities have changed
- Whether your contribution to the company has changed
- Whether the external market has changed
As part of this, your manager may look at market benchmarking data, at other roles and salaries within the company, or at your company’s competency frameworks and pay bands (if your company has these).
You should also consider these factors. If you think one of the above things has changed and you deserve a pay increase — you should say so! Pay negotiation can feel awkward and difficult because people aren’t used to talking about money openly… but it’s also a key component of career development, and — take it from me — other people are definitely asking, even if you aren’t. There are lots of useful resources online to help you get started if you would like some advice, or ask one of your friends or colleagues to help you practice so you feel a bit less uncomfortable when it comes to the crunch.
If you think there is a case for your salary to be increased, it’s usually helpful to create a short written case to explain why, though you should definitely broach the subject in person — it’s not really appropriate (or easy) to do it via email! You might write the case yourself initially, but your line manager — if they agree — may also contribute. This case usually has to be submitted to HR, or to your management team, for consideration. If there’s an unnecessary amount of faffing going on, you can also suggest that, once a decision is reached, any increase is backdated to when the request was submitted — this can take the pressure off a bit, and allow a good decision to be reached.
Bear in mind that not all salary increases will be agreed. Your manager may judge that your role hasn’t changed enough to warrant an increase, or it may be that a salary increase is not justified compared to the roles and salaries of other people in the company. If this is the case, your line manager should let you know why the increase hasn’t been approved. You may then want to discuss whether there are any alternatives — for example, you might identify additional responsibilities you can take on to develop your role further, or training which your company can provide as a non-financial benefit instead.
Ultimately, at that point, it will be up to you to decide whether you think your old salary is fair after all, or if you think you are worth more and want to look for a new job elsewhere!
Good luck!