Annual Judgment Day
By: Tim Augustine
Why do performance reviews have to be so painful?
Let's face it, as managers, we spend hours upon hours completing paperwork, rating each employee, and meeting with each person to review his or her strengths and weaknesses. We meet to debate "ratings" of 4 (above average), which in the employees mind should have been a 5 (excellent). Our staff dreads the reviews, and seldom wants to hear constructive criticism, let alone any negative feedback you might have. Is this all sounding familiar?
I am not an anti-performance review kind of HR guy. However, I do think traditional HR professionals focus too much on the paperwork and rating scales, and not enough time on improving the employee/manager communication process. Performance feedback is effective if implemented with one goal in mind: Establishing clear expectations for a desired behavior.
Before we delve into the specific tools that I have used to establish clear expectations, let me start by saying that you need to continually provide feedback to your staff throughout the year. Do not rely on the annual performance review to drive desired behavior. Short monthly meetings with your staff could dramatically improve morale, performance and employee retention rate. An employee should never be surprised during a performance review.
1. Get to know your staff.
Do you know my background?
Develop a tool which allows your staff to tell you who they are. I call it a living resume or more formally, an Employee Profile. A living resume is an ever-changing document that an employee can update annually, which captures their educational accomplishments, degrees, certifications and recent seminars. This document should also provide work experience and specific roles and responsibilities that provide the framework of the person's skills, knowledge and professional career. Use this document as a foundation to all career development, coaching or feedback sessions you have with your staff.
Do you know how I feel?
Provide a vehicle for your staff to give you feedback. Develop a document that the employee can complete prior to your meeting that asks the following questions:
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How is the company doing?
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How is your group or team performing?
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How am I doing as a leader?
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What should I start doing, stop doing and continue doing?
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How are you doing?
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What are your strengths and areas of improvement?
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What are your career goals over the next six months, two years and five years?
2. Define clear expectations.
What do you expect?
Make sure you have a clear description for each position at your company. In short, a Position Description should specifically communicate the position's role and responsibilities including the tasks, activities and expected results of the position. In addition, the description should also highlight the personality traits that would thrive in your team's and organization's work environment and culture, ie., teamwork, willingness to learn, passion, enthusiasm and drive, just to name a few.
3. Talk with your staff.
I am not a strong proponent of Likert scales, checklists or rating systems as a tool to evaluate a person and his or her performance. You could devastate a highly motivated employee just by rating them as "average." In addition, you need to ask yourself, when did an average rating score drive expected behavior?
Develop a specific, short list of criteria, and use the list as a platform for the conversation. I recommend evaluating two areas of an employee's performance: technical skills and personality/cultural fit.
First, identify five key technical skills that are critical to the specific position. For example, a sales person's technical skills might include:
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Understanding of products/services of your firm
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Ability to communicate the value of your products/services
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Ability to prospect / cold call
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Ability to develop relationships with clients
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Ability to close deals
While these are just examples, you could use these five areas to have an open-ended conversation with the employee. Document the discussion, and remember, your goal is to drive behavioral change.
Second, identify five key personality traits that are critical to succeed in the position. Again, in a sales person these might be:
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Presentation and written skills
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Teamwork
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Business acumen
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Enthusiasm and passion
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Accomplishment driven and a desire to win
Document the discussion and again, remember that your goal is to drive behavioral change.
4. How do you like to be evaluated?
In closing, my last piece of advice is to remember that you were once in the employee's shoes. What type of performance reviews or discussions really helped you or really drove you to want to do a better job? Spend time listening during the review. You should not dominate the conversation. Ask the employee questions, and pay attention to his or her response to your points. You and the employee should jointly develop strategies to improve. Make sure you develop a game plan with specific milestones and timing and set a meeting date such as six months to review their goals and progress.
