American industrialist Henry Ford once said, “Don’t find fault—find a remedy.” While a bit blunt, his words remind us of our need to improve our performance with actual results, not just fault-finding. In other words, employee success and growth won’t happen by accident. It happens intentionally through planning and feedback—which means handling performance reviews with skill is essential.
Here’s what you need to know to roll out mid-year reviews that make a difference.
Success Comes with Strategy around Mid-Year HR Performance Reviews
Leadership expert Robin Sharma says, “Small daily improvements, over time, lead to stunning results.” Moving employees toward the small daily improvements they need in the workplace is vital. It requires understanding the role’s goals, the organizational mission, one’s ability, and personal motivation.
As managers, we must think about ways that foster the continual success of our business, and how that ties into the continual success of our employees. This is what makes the mid-year review process so valuable.
Recognize this process is more than a check-the-boxes activity.
Imagine if Captain Marvel called out, “Avengers, assemble!”—and everyone came together to discuss how effectively they defeated Ultron and restored the universe to its natural order. The review process should be designed to ensure leaders, managers, and employees alike get excited about the opportunities that mid-year reviews provide.
While we may not be able to pull off a dramatic Marvel movie ending, we can do something to engage everyone in the review process. Don’t settle for letting the mid-year review serve as a bland, check-boxed form for lower performers to complete because HR requires it. Look for ways to do more with it in a positive way for all involved.
Embrace opportunities for staff growth, morale, and retention.
Your employees have been working all year long in support of the organization’s mission, vision, and financial success. So, their mid-year performance review deserves to be more than a simple checkpoint. This is an opportunity that equips employees to believe, act, go forward with clear direction, and smile.
Yes, there may be times when underperformance must be addressed. But whether the review feedback includes corrections or congratulations—your employees deserve to know how they’re performing. You, awesome leader, are charged with sharing feedback with employees on what they are capable of doing, providing motivation on what should be done, and enabling an attitude that will determine what the employee accomplishes. And you can do it!
Productive feedback makes all the difference to employee engagement.
Remember that being lazy about the review process is a surefire way of reducing your team members’ level of engagement! A 2019 Joblist.com survey[1] found that one-third of employees would like to receive more feedback from their managers. The same study also uncovered that nearly 60% of employees receiving regular feedback during informal meetings were extremely or very motivated at work.
The nice thing about mid-year reviews is that they tend to be more informal than the end-of-year review—which, if done correctly, supports decisions on promotions, compensation increases, and continuation with the organization. Further, if mid-year feedback is done correctly, these end-of-year decisions are not a surprise. As an article on this topic from Fastcompany states, “The focus of mid-year reviews should be on communication and further strengthening the relationship you have with your employee.”[2]
5 Ways to Show Support During Mid-Year Performance Assessments
Here are a few steps to support your effort in this important endeavor:
1. Do the right thing by others, specifically your employees.
Talk to your employees. Understand their motivations, concerns (which impact attitude), and their capabilities. These understandings never start with a mid-year review. They begin prior to the onboarding of an employee and certainly as soon as a new person joins your organization. It’s an ongoing process. In short, your daily role not only includes engaging in your deliverables, but also enabling your employees to be successful in theirs, understanding the issues they face, and supporting their ability to address them.
2. Bring mission into the conversation.
Discuss the mission of the organization, as well as the goals of the performance review. Engage in a conversation about how the employee’s capabilities and attitude align with the mission. And be transparent if there are opportunities for improvement—honest, direct feedback helps everyone.
HR pro tip:
Don’t cut corners on items one and two. Motivational speaker/writer Hopal Green states, “Taking a shortcut isn’t always profitable. Doing the right thing may take longer but just trust the process—your reward is sure!” Doing these steps with thoughtful planning can bring out the results everyone wants to see from the review process.
3. Treat the mid-year review as an opportunity.
It’s common for people to feel a performance review is going to be a checklist of everything that’s going wrong—but it doesn’t have to be a negative process. Looking for ways to make it positive will boost morale, promote buy-in, and help the organization grow. You might even change the name of your review process if it will evoke a greater understanding of its importance to your organization’s mission and the employee’s success.
4. Arrange the meeting and gather the data.
Saying you will do performance reviews and actually doing them are two different things. Action has value here. Connect with your HR Consultant as necessary to ensure you have all the proper HR information to effectively complete the review—including performance documentation, time in role and level, customer reviews, and quantitative data such as number of absences, tardiness, etc.
HR pro tips:
- Own the value of making time. When you as the manager arrange the meeting, it sets an understanding of its importance to the employee and supports their need to collaborate with you.
- Use fact-based feedback. Focusing on the facts removes emotion from the conversation. Thus, preparation is critical to having a successful performance review.
- Focus on opportunities. While the mid-year meeting is often more relaxed than end-of-year reviews, it should be treated seriously as it is an opportunity for you as the leader or manager to ensure you and your employees are on the same page regarding expectations. It allows you to find ways to address capability, motivation levels and attitude. Further, it is an opportunity to highlight the employee’s strengths in these areas as well. Everyone appreciates being recognized for what they do well.
5. Let the employee speak.
Ensure the employee understands the expectations of the meeting ahead of time. Provide a general agenda that outlines what the meeting will focus on, and offer employees appropriate time and opportunity to prepare for the meeting you have scheduled. Before the review meeting ends, invite the employee to share and respond to what has been discussed. In short, this is an opportunity to listen.
Conquer Mid-Year Performance Reviews with Help from Our Savvy HR Pros
Make sure your team is properly maintaining your staff with performance review strategies aligned specifically with your organization’s mission, size, compliance requirements, and roles. While you can gain some basic knowledge of mid-year reviews online, the best way to set your team up for success in these efforts is to consult with Human Resources experts who can pinpoint your approach.
At Who’s Your HR?, we support organizations in creating performance review strategies and techniques to ensure that managers are prepared, documentation is secure, and conversations are effective for the organization, the manager, and of course the employee. Connect with us today to discuss how we can support your need to assemble your team for this very important conversation!
[1] https://www.joblist.com/trends/feedback-on-the-job
[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/90801704/mid-year-versus-end-of-year-reviews-why-we-need-both
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