Penny, 5yo, would love to get more feedback
Before reading the article, please watch this 2min parody of performance reviews.
So here we are, it was the big day for Penny and she sat with her boss to get her annual performance review in order to know how she was doing at work. Even though this is a parody and clearly you should not nap for 3 hours at work, we’ve all been there at some point in our career.
Let’s just take a few minutes to analyze what’s going on in the video:
- Performance review is often associated with negativity. People are not looking forward to it and thinks of it as a chore.
“I’m not happy”
- There is a lack of context for a lot of situations.
“The three hours nap in the middle of the day cannot continue”
- There is no clear agenda or structure. It’s hard to prepare for your review because employees don’t know what to expect.
Jumping from nap time to lunch break to quarterly report
- No suggestions, advice or recommendation is given. This leave employees facing their problem with no clear path on how to improve.
- Because reviews are sometimes so infrequent and rare, there is a disconnect between what the manager thinks you do or should do and what you really do.
- There is no clear action or follow up after performance reviews. Employees go back to what they were doing with , fuzzy accountability, vague objectives and distant deadlines.
“You’ve said that before”
Again, those are problem that we face and neither Penny or us are able to improve, be more engaged and be happier about our work life by knowing where we are going.
Now think about athletes? Are their coaches waiting for them to lose the competition to adjust and give them advice on how to improve? NO! What about students? Are the teachers waiting for them to fail the exams to give them tips on how to improve? NO!
Why does your workplace have to be different from your sports club or your history class? Why does all the Penny have to be fired while they could just be the next rockstar on your team?
If you want to know more about our vision of feedback in the workplace, check what we do at Captain Feedback!
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