Getting Value Out of Mid-Year Performance Reviews (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this blog post, we discussed the benefits of giving effective performance reviews for both leaders and employees.

In Part 2, let’s take a closer look at how to create a performance review process that ensures your organization is setting clear goals, establishing level expectations, identifying and removing obstacles, and preventing performance problems.

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Penny Horton | June 21, 2019

HOW TO SET UP EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

Creating performance reviews that are productive, fair, and clear takes planning and care. Using these guidelines can make the process smoother for everyone.

• Make the measures objective, not subjective.

The more objective you can make your employee evaluations, the better — because objective measures give you hard data. In some environments, this can be relatively straightforward. 

Example: If an employee is producing widgets and the expectation is that they produce 10 quality widgets per hour, setting up a mechanism to track production speed and quality lets you know whether employees are meeting this hourly goal.

Setting objectives gets more challenging with employee roles that are not as easy to measure. A degree of creativity may be required to come up with measurable objectives. But tip #2 can help.

• Evaluate performance based on what employees can control.

Employees can’t control everything that happens in a company, but they do have control over their particular assignments. It’s important to hold them accountable for what is actually in their control, and to provide them with feedback about how they’re doing. 

Example: The individual widget producer isn’t responsible for the company’s overall profitability. But hitting their production goals with both speed and quality helps the company have working widgets to ship to customers. 

Example:A receptionist isn’t responsible for how many widgets are produced per hour. But they can control things like: how often they arrive on time, how well they walk clients through the process of connecting with salespeople, how well they perform as the gatekeepers for others in the office, and the level of professionalism they demonstrate to potential customers — all of which impact the company’s bottom line.

• Involve employees in the process.

A great way to get employee buy-in, while also making sure performance measures are appropriate, is to invite employees to set goals for their role. This allows employees to feel empowered and invested in their role. It also establishes clear, measurable goals that are easy to track and evaluate.

• Make sure feedback is regular and timely.

There are two ways to give employees feedback — spontaneously, and on a regular, structured schedule. Both are powerful.

• Spontaneous, immediate feedback:
  • Is great for times when an employee goes above and beyond, or accomplishes something particularly impressive
  • Acknowledges accomplishments right away, which builds morale and keeps employees engaged
  • Gives you more hard data to use when pulling together more formal performance review documentation
    
    
• Structured, regular reviews:
  • Are the formal performance reviews you hold at scheduled times throughout the year 
  • Should take place as often as it makes sense to have them in your particular company
  • Becomes a regular cadence that allows the employee a level of predictability and comfort with giving and receiving feedback

• Institute a formal review process.

Casual, spontaneous feedback is helpful. But a formal, established review process ensures a company a number of advantages:

• It creates a way to have structured conversations about performance with every employee. This can be additionally valuable if you have leaders who are uncomfortable or new to giving feedback.
• It helps ensure that every employee is evaluated along the same, consistent measures for their particular role, protecting you from potential discrimination lawsuits and inequity claims.
• It establishes objective criteria that can be measured, rather than subjective measures that could be interpreted as discriminatory.
• It institutes a way to document employee efforts or problems, creating a paper trail that may be useful should you need to defend decisions or even discipline an employee.
• It tracks performance according to a consistent set of criteria and objective data, which is essential if your company awards merit-based increases and promotions.

Your performance review process can be smooth and streamlined.

If your company needs assistance establishing performance review criteria, evaluating your current reviews, or finding ways to improve the review process, Who’s Your HR is here to help.

I’ll assess your existing review process or help you establish one that is structured, clear, measurable and simple for leaders and employees to use to improve performance and achieve objectives. To learn more, contact me today.

answerme@hrraw.com