In the hustle and bustle of everyday work, employee performance reviews can easily fall by the wayside.
The truth is, managers and employees management performance reviews often fear annual reviews. Many managers find preparation time-consuming and are reluctant to provide critical feedback. Meanwhile, employees may feel like they are back in school being evaluated. However, properly handled employee reviews play a crucial role in managing employee performance reviews and increasing job satisfaction and commitment to the organization.
A performance reviews discussion meeting is the annual opportunity for employees and managers to sit down for a direct, uninterrupted discussion centered on the employee’s strengths, challenges and future plans. The goal is to provide fair, constructive and honest feedback to recognize employee accomplishments and help you improve in the coming months.
Follow these rules to make your annual performance review meetings more beneficial and ensure excellent human resource management.
Nine effective tips of performance reviews.
- Avoid surprises in the performance review
An employee should not be surprised by anything that is said during an employee performance reviews goals. They should already know how they are doing with regular feedback from managers throughout the year. Your assessment should be based on realistic, measurable, and achievable goals that you set and write down at the beginning of the year with employee input.
- Do your homework
Prepare concrete examples of the past year’s achievements and challenges so you’re not dealing with vague generalities. To be able to do this, you should keep a year-round record of how employees are performing and solicit feedback and feedback from other managers. Describe the employee’s strengths and weaknesses and be ready to hear their comments in response.
- Think about the scenario
Schedule the meeting a few days in advance and make sure you allow enough time for a full discussion. Choose a meeting place that is comfortable and private. Make sure you don’t get interrupted so a performance review needs to be done with 100% focus.
- Get off to a good start
Start with the employee’s key accomplishments during the year. Express gratitude for their efforts. It’s important for satisfying professionals to know that you recognize their contribution to the team.
- Be honest and keep it specific
When discussing challenges or areas of underperformance, focus on what happened, not the person. For example, an employee for being too slow doesn’t criticize. Instead, discuss how it could be avoided in the future and then describe a specific deadline that was missed.
- Develop an action plan
If the ranking of employees is satisfactory, set goals (which may include areas of development) for the next year. If there is room for improvement, work to come up with a plan that focuses on one or two main areas. For example, in the case of negative feedback from customers, the plan may involve investigating the cause of the feedback and arranging for the employee to receive training and improve for the next performance review.
- Discuss ideas for development
Ask about career aspirations and discuss training possibilities and other learning opportunities. Avoid being the only one who is talking. Ask employees for their opinion.
- Summarize the performance review and end it on a positive note
Thank the employee for the discussion and briefly review the actions you have accepted.
- Follow-up
Once you’ve agreed on the next steps, provide follow-up support to help the employee achieve the goals you’ve set. A mid-year performance update discussion should be part of your performance management system.
Performance appraisal tips every leader should use
1- Before charging, clarify performance reviews expectations
So that your performance review doesn’t just look like a demand, be transparent about your initial expectations. Clarify the employee’s roles and activities and make it clear what you expect from their performance. In addition to describing what you are looking for from them, also explain how you will evaluate their performance. Before actually analyzing, it is also important to set goals together. Make sure you are open to all possible queries and that the employee understands the best means of achieving these goals. All performance discussions will be useful if something productive emerges from them, such as achieving goals based on personal evolutions.
2- Write down everyday highlights
You can annotate everyday highlights and organize them into a file, even online, for your better control. If you leave to remember all the last minute events, about several collaborators, you may miss some relevant fact. Maybe you want to recognize a professional for a project completed very efficiently. Or, call the team’s attention to a missed deadline. By recording the key facts, you are also preparing yourself to ensure a more complete and fair performance review. Notes are sure to turn into opportunities for feedback and improvement.
3- Ask for a self-assessment
That “golden” among performance reviews appraisal tips: ask for a self-assessment. Before meeting with your employee, have him reflect on three of his main strengths of performance reviews in the company and three to improve. You will likely have a lot of information to add, but knowing what he thinks about your performance can help guide the conversation in a more natural way. Depending on the self-analysis, you may notice a more insecure, demanding or even overconfident profile. When giving your opinion, focus on what he hasn’t mentioned in the conversation yet, but that probably deserves special attention.
4- Greater focus on positive feedback
There will be areas for improvement, but the performance reviews appraisal tips are to focus on positive feedback. Spend most of your time exploring the positive aspects of your employee’s work, what he’s been getting right. Congratulate and encourage whenever possible, professional improvement. In addition to being gratifying, this evaluation will be extremely motivating for that employee who is always looking to improve his performance
The organization needs a performance review.
Organizations will struggle to achieve their goals and objectives if teams don’t have a clear path to personal success, performance appraisal, managers can connect people to the organization’s broader mission.
