Tips to make your next performance appraisal powerful & effective

Recently I was asked if time and results were the only things you could use to measure employee performance. Here’s a snippet of my response.The most important thing to remember when measuring performance is that you are trying to measure the things that make the most difference (not just the things that can be measured). The problem is that many of the things that make the most difference are not easily quantifiable.

For example, it’s easy to measure how many hours someone works. But they may have wasted that time, derailed projects and created lots of rework for people in that time. Time is not a good measure of results.

The employee may have delivered on a project, but in doing so they may have alienated all their team mates and annoyed the major clients so much that they leave and find other suppliers. Results alone are not a good measure of success.

Some of my most productive and best team members in the past are the ones who spent less “face time” in the office than other team members – they were just more productive when they were there and could form stronger relationships with team members and clients.

Performance is a blend of what you do and how you do it. Performance reviews that just focus on the task and the what are less effective than ones that also balance the process of how the task was done.

I prefer to measure task success, understanding & compliance with internal procedures and practices as well as their approach which includes things that are important to your company.

The sort of things you may want to consider includes things like cross team collaboration, attendance and punctuality, initiative, dependability, attitude, judgment, communication, productivity, interpersonal relationships, organisational & time management, knowledge sharing, safety etc.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Performance reviews can be very serious – but they can also be funny.

Check out the great employee review comments and what they “really” mean (as well as some very funny comments made on military performance appraisals).

http://www.squidoo.com/employeeperformancereview.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Performance reviews just got easier!

I have just released my Employee Performance Reviews – Tips, Templates and Tactics pack.

The pack is choc-a-bloc full of great tips, templates and tactics for small businesses wanting to introduce or improve their employee performance review process.

Just for starters – the pack contains over 55 pages of probation templates, performance review templates, learning & development templates, unsatisfactory work performance templates and discipline templates … all ready to be customised for your business.

Employee Performance Reviews – Tips, Templates and Tactics also contains the best wisdom from 25 years of hands-on, in-the-trenches experience on:

• the 4 stages of performance management – it is simpler than you think,
• why do performance reviews anyway – reasons to review for both for a manager and an employee,
• preparation and location for optimal outcomes – how to get it right before you walk in the door,
• how to choose your words for best result and
• handling difficult emotions – yours and theirs!

Employee Performance Reviews – Tips, Templates and Tactics

comes with a stack of bonus HR Articles to help you manage and implement change, motivate your team and manage inter-generational differences within your team.

Check out the Employee Performance Reviews – Tips, Templates and Tactics pack here!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – We put your business into words

One of the most common questions I get is “how long should we put aside for the actual review”.
My answer is it depends on a number of factors:

• have you had regular feedback sessions one on one with the person throughout the year?
• have they completed a self assessment (this cuts down on meeting time as well as improves the quality of the discussion if done correctly)?
• how well do you truly know the person?
• are you really serious about the review?
• what challenges have you and the person had in the past year?
• what projects are coming up for the new year.

If you haven’t spoken regularly since the last review you could be up for a 2 hour session as the person has a lot of catching up to do with you. They generally have your attention and will make the most of the opportunity!

If you have a great relationship, know each other well, have regular communication and have both done your pre-assessments – then a half hour is quite normal

At a minimum I suggest a one-hour timeslot with another hour between your next appointment and the review. That way if you run over there are no problems – you can concentrate on the person in front of you instead of watching the clock

So … how long should you allocate? As long as it takes to have a deep, connected discussion with your employee. Simple really!

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Preparation is the key to a successful employee performance review. Reviews are not something you can just pop into and “winging it” if you want to get the best results from the review.

So how do you prepare? Start by gathering your data – by that I mean:

• dust off last year’s performance review – have a look through and see what was agreed, what training you had decided on, strengths and challenges as well as goals and targets
• find the position description for both your role and the role being reviewed – so you can talk about how the two fit together
• locate the business plan or corporate plan – highlight the key parts of the plan that relate to the role. Every job needs to be delivering on some aspect of the plan – work out specifically how the role contributes to the overall strategy
• look back over any project reports, email updates, diary notes to list out as prompts the projects completed or started by the person in the role
• review the personnel records relating to annual leave (to make sure the person is having sufficient breaks to rest and recuperate), sick leave (for any patterns such as always having a Monday off)
• a copy of the employee’s own assessment for this year (the best reviews ask for the employee to complete a self assessment form first and hand it to you before the review so you can read over the notes before the meeting. We will talk more about this in another post)

Once you have your data, look over the list and start to collate your thoughts into categories.

• Background and context for the role
• Last year’s goals
• Areas of strength for the person
• Areas of challenge for the person
• Team member approach & attitude
• Areas for development
• Upcoming projects and targets
• Administration

Once you have your notes together you then need to plan for your personal approach during the review – by this I mean thinking through HOW you will phrase and say what you want to say and planning for possible responses. This is a major priority for success and will be the subject for a more detailed review in a future post.

Until next time

Ingrid

Questions and not the answers you provide create the most powerful employee performance reviews.

Think about learning to drive a car – someone could tell you what to do until they were blue in the face, but it wasn’t until you physically sat in the drivers seat and made mistakes (corrected by the instructor) that you truly started to learn to drive.

Why do managers then insist employee performance review time is when they get to sit back and tell the employee everything they have done wrong and what they should do to fix it?

The best managers and leaders use employee performance reviews as a time to ask powerful questions to help the employee reflect on their performance and to set goals for the future.

Here’s two of my favourite questions that I use with my team and why I use those questions.

· What was your favourite task/role/project in the past 12 months and why? What made it so special? What made it successful? What did you do to make it work so well? This is a great question as it helps you to find patterns of success. You get to learn what motivates your team member.

· What was your biggest mistake/regret of the past 12 months and what did you learn from it? Another great question. Often this will help identify areas you need to keep an eye on in the future. For example, was there a particular personality they couldn’t work with, were they having problems with time management or trouble with balancing work and life? By having them reflect and learn from their mistakes you help teach that mistakes happen in life – it is what you do with them that are important.

To have a look at some of the other questions I ask my team during their employee performance reviews here is a link to one of my articles.

Until next time

Ingrid

Employee performance reviews need to be conducted using a clear system that everyone understands and follows. If you do this you will increase your ability to manage employee performance – both good and bad.

All performance management systems in business are made up of just 4 basic stages – everything else is just window dressing.

These stages are:

1. Setting clear goals or targets

2. Performing the work

3. Checking how the work went against the goals or targets

4. Setting new goals or targets

So, how do you set clear goals and targets? The basics of any effective employee performance goal or target are having clear and shared understanding of:

· What has to be done;

· How is it to be done (which includes information, resources or riding instructions); and

· How do you know that it has been done successfully?

You develop your clear and shared understanding as part of your employee performance review. This can be through discussions or through formal written documents – the level of formality depends on your individual needs, company policy and the relationships you have with your staff.

Performing the work stage of the cycle is fairly self explanatory. This is where you as a manager get out of the way and let the actual work be performed. However, you do provide regular and ongoing feedback to help keep your employee on track. I like to think of it like a test and measure for your advertising campaign – you regularly check in with what is working and then adjust things as you go to get the absolute best out of the campaign.

My over-riding rule for all employee performance review processes is “No new information”!

There should be absolutely no surprises to your employees if you have provided feedback correctly during the “doing” stage of the process. If there was a surprised reaction, this is giving you feedback that your own personal communication style may need some attention.

At the review stage you review and summarise how things went and then start the whole cycle again. You can hold your reviews every 6 or 12 months, depending on your individual company and the needs of your projects or tasks.

Employee Performance Reviews with your staff does not have to be a “big deal” – it just needs to be regular, ongoing and understood.

Until next time

Ingrid

In real estate the catch phrase is location, location, location. This is also true for your employee performance review.

One of the first things you need to consider is the location where you will be holding your review. Performance reviews need to be held somewhere where your conversation will not be overheard by other team members. You also need to have somewhere where other team members can’t peer into the room to “watch how it is going”.

Effective reviews can’t be held over your front counter if customers are likely to walk in, out in the tea room if other team members are around or even outside standing in the parking lot. You need a location where you can sit down together and discuss in a safe, quiet and calm environment the employee’s performance.

In many businesses this will mean that the local coffee shop becomes your performance review office – as you may not have enough privacy within your workplace.

If this is your situation, try and pick a time either when the coffee shop just opens or is about 2 hours from closing rather than in the busiest time of the day. You want to be able to hear each other and not be bumped by other people!

In terms of seating, if you are worried at all about how your employee may react (they may burst into tears for example) seat them in a way that their privacy and dignity is retained. This may mean they face away from other people or you sit in a booth rather than a central table.

Meeting over a coffee will also help break the ice between you both as you both have something to do if emotions run high (drink your coffee, organise a water etc).

One last word – if you host the employee performance review off site you get to pick up the tab for the coffee!

Until next time

Ingrid

One of the hardest challenges managers face in the workplace is conducting an employee performance review.

Some attack reviews like a bull at a gate – racing in and talking at a thousand words a minute (and not listening in the process); others are very laid back – so laid back employees don’t know where they stand and still others are masters of avoidance – always managing to be too busy to actually have an performance review with their employees.

I have worked with many managers in my 25 years as a Human Resource professional and have found a number of tips and strategies that make conducting an employee performance review easier and more effective for everyone involved.

Through this blog I intend sharing some of these ideas with you – so you can make your employee performance review positive, powerful and productive.

Until next time

regards

Ingrid