How To Run A Kick A** Performance Review Part One

For managers, the end of the financial year signifies the annual performance review period— the time for them to cringe, rack their brains and try to remember what has happened over the course of the 12 months. It can be a challenging time for both the employee and manager, especially when the manager is walking in unsure of their desired outcome… Other than the desire for it to be over.

So what would constitute a perfect performance review? We believe intent is the first step in running an effective performance review and intent will therefore be our first blog in our performance review series leading up to the end of the financial year.

Let’s Be Real

We have to be completely honest with you, we don't believe in the annual review and we don’t do them ourselves.. However, we have had many in our collective time at other companies and we still hear the stories - the good, bad and downright ugly! We believe that the best way to conduct performance reviews is to actually ditch the annual process and instead allow for frequent communication, feedback and engagement with your employees to increase transparency and trust. Regular reviews allow for issues to be addressed quickly, goals to be updated and for your team member to avoid feeling blindsided by negative comments, especially when based on something that could have been rectified months ago. Infrequent feedback (like annual performance reviews) is actually a main culprit in disengaged employees with 62% of millennial employees stating that they have felt “blindsided” by a performance review and 74% said they feel “in the dark” about how their managers and peers think they’re performing. HOWEVER, we understand that many companies still operate in the traditional mode and we have provided our unsolicited (but excellent) advice on how to improve your transition into this year’s performance review and set you up for those in the years to follow.

What’s Out There

Most pre-existing advice doesn’t sit well with us. Many articles discuss that the performance review is a time to make sure everything’s in order, check in with your employee and your employee’s file to ensure that if anything were to go wrong, like your employee suing the company, your a** would be covered. The message of which essentially being approach the performance review thinking about what is best for the company rather than considering what is best for the employee. This approach means you’re stepping into the review with the wrong intent and you’re setting yourself up for negative consequences down the track… Kind of like an ironic self-fulfilling prophecy.

First Things First

So.. Put yourself in the shoes of your employees and imagine what do they want out of this performance review?

Seeing the performance review from the viewpoint of the other party shows that you actually care and allows you to talk to them with meaning. If a team leader approaches the performance review only considering what is best themselves all that follows will set them up for a poor performance review.

We have heard horror stories from people who have entered into a performance review that:

1. Gets continuously pushed rescheduled, 15 minutes before you are supposed to meet because the manager isn't 'prepared'
2. The manager checks their phone throughout
3. The manager charges through predetermined questions without listening to the responses.

All in all these performance reviews resulted in the employee walking out disengaged and feeling that their manager was ticking a box rather than evaluating performance…. You must care! Genuinely! Approaching your performance reviews from the viewpoint of your employees encourages openness, transparency and trust and therefore facilitates better working relationships and sets your employee up for greater growth in the company.

Understanding Your Team’s Needs

Once you approach the performance review considering what is best for the team member, you start to consider the small but critical factors that will lead to a better review. As an example, are you scheduling the performance review the day before an employee is running a big presentation? Are you running your review in a noisy environment that your timid employee can’t stand or in a stale environment that your energetic employee will hate? In 2015 millennials passed Gen X to make up the largest population in the workforce… Do you know what your millennial employees prefer compared to those who have been with the company for a long time?

Once you step into the shoes of your employee, your performance review has already surpassed what it would if you had approached it thinking about what’s best for you AND you haven’t even starting considering the nitty gritty details of how to prepare, what to say and what to do afterwards yet.

So congrats! You’re awesome! You are already better than those who don’t have time for this ‘touchy feely crap’. Stayed tuned for next week’s blog on how you can prepare to have an awesome performance conversation with your team players. In the meantime we’ll leave you with this:

• Don’t reschedule the conversation. It means something else is more important that your employee’s time to shine! If you must reschedule, talk to your employee in person / on the phone and explain why. That’s the least you can do.
• Know your intent before you start, this should be coming from a good place.
• Every employee is unique, understand how that may influence your conversation with them.