The DOs and DON'Ts of Functioning Reviews

Jan 07, 2020

By BJ Gallagher

Is there anyone in the workplace who has not undergone the torture of a performance review done badly? I'thou sure we have all had to suffer the torment of a well-intentioned only badly-executed functioning appraisement—in which we felt every bit if we were the ones being executed! Blindfold, anyone? Got whatsoever last words earlier the verbal assault begins? I don't even smoke but I'm tempted to ask for a final cigarette!

Most operation review systems in most organizations are so poorly designed and conducted that they really do more harm than good. I oftentimes tell my clients that they would exist better off doing nothing rather than doing what they're currently doing! I'm not kidding.

Here are x common mistakes managers brand, and tips for avoiding them. These are practical activeness steps you tin take to design and implement a system that will practise what you want it to exercise—better performance!

Mistake: The performance review is a i-mode, summit-downwards process in which the boss serves as approximate and jury of employees' beliefs and achievements on the chore.
Solution: Make it a ii-manner process, at the very least. (If you really want an effective review system, design a 360-degree system that involves peer reviews likewise as a self-review.) The employee should take written a self-appraisal prior to the meeting with his or her boss—a written certificate comparable to what the boss is preparing. That way, both people in the coming together volition be focused on the documentation of job operation, instead of the dominate focusing on the employee. Remember: We do not evaluate people—nosotros evaluate their results.

After a brief setting-the-tone introductory comment or 2 by the boss, the employee should be invited to go over his or her self-appraisement commencement. This helps eliminate defensiveness and gets the meeting off to a good start by establishing that it is a dialogue, a two-way chat in which both parties can share observations, perspectives, and comments about chore performance.

You'll find that your top performers will usually rate themselves lower than yous do. That's because they have loftier expectations for themselves—often higher than you have for them. Yous'll observe that the contrary is as well truthful: Your poorest performers will oft rate themselves college than you lot rate them. Whatever the situation, talking about the gap between your evaluation and theirs will be fruitful in getting you both on the same page (both literally and figuratively) in terms of time to come expectations.

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Fault: The review process tries to serve every bit a coaching tool for employee development, also as a bounty tool to decide salary increases.
Solution: Your functioning reviews should exist done for either development OR for bounty—not both. If you're interested in coaching and evolution for improved results in the future, then unhook compensation from the process and focus just on the work itself. Carry your performance review discussions as far abroad as you can from the time of year when salary decisions are made.

If you're doing reviews in order to make bacon decisions, that's fine—just be articulate that that'southward what you're doing. Then yous tin can conduct your review conversations in the few weeks only before raises are announced.

The trouble with trying to combine both employee development and compensation decisions in the same session is that employees are but going to pay attention to the coin—all the rest will go in i ear and out the other. You will become no coaching benefits from such a chat. Employees will announced to exist paying attention to what y'all're maxim about their operation, but they're actually just waiting to hear the magic number. Money talks—all else is lost.

Mistake: The person doing the appraisal has fiddling or no day-to-24-hour interval contact with the employee whose performance is being judged.
Solution: This one is a no-brainer. The person having review conversations with an employee should be the supervisor or manager who has the near contact with that employee and is in the best position to accurately assess solar day-to-solar day results.

Mistake: Employees receive little or no advance discover of their "Judgment Day."
Solution: Performance discussions ideally should exist conducted on a regular footing, on a schedule well-known and well-publicized to everyone in the arrangement.

Error: Managers are vague in their feedback to employees. Or they assign arbitrary numerical "grades" with little or no substantiation.
Solution: Functioning feedback needs to exist well documented in gild to exist constructive. Here's where information technology helps to have a good paper trail—documentation of both the skilful results and the non-so-good results.

Don't rely on your memory in outlining how well the employee accomplished his or her goals and met your expectations. (The homo memory is a mismatch detector and it will always do a good task of remembering the bad stuff, while forgetting the proficient stuff.) Keep a file on each person who reports to you, and brand regular notes to yourself on behavior and results as y'all notice them—the good, the bad, and yep, even the ugly. Encourage your employees to go along files for themselves, so that they, likewise, have documentation when they are writing their cocky-appraisals. Mutual documentation helps proceed everyone's focus on the job, not on the person.

Fault: The review process tries to evaluate traits, rather than behaviors and results.
Solution: This is one of the most common mistakes I run across on functioning review forms—they try to evaluate personal traits, such equally leadership, motivation, conscientiousness, attitude then on. The problem with traits is that they are internal and subjective— virtually impossible to evaluate on a fair basis.

Instead of traits, go on your evaluation focused on 2 things: Behaviors and results. Behaviors are deportment that yous tin observe directly—she did the filing, he answered the phone, she called on customers, he repaired the machines, and so on. Results are likewise observable: She achieved her sales quota, he reduced waste material by X%, she increased productivity by X amount, he completed his projects on time, and then on.

Mistake: The appraisal is a in one case-a-yr consequence that everyone tries to get through every bit quickly as they can, considering information technology's painful for bosses and employees alike.
Solution: The primary goal in evaluating performance is to improve it. Therefore, you want to design a meaningful system of coaching conversations that people welcome, discover useful, and deem valuable. Employees need regular feedback on how they're doing—what they're doing well and what needs improvement. Once a year simply doesn't cut information technology. Design a elementary, like shooting fish in a barrel to apply organisation that encourages bosses and employees to engage in two-way conversations throughout the year—that's the but mode you'll get any existent mileage out of a performance review system.

Mistake: In that location is no investigation of causes that underlie employees' chore performance problems.
Solution: People don't perform poorly for no reason. At that place are e'er causes—but you'll never know what those causes are if you don't make the review process ane of requite and take, support and coaching, with both parties focused on the same objective—doing the best job possible.

If an employee is performing poorly, ask questions. Don't assume you lot know the reason—or jump to conclusions that he's lazy, she's dumb, he'south unmotivated, or she's incompetent. Apply your performance review conversations as opportunities to discover out what are the possible reasons for an employee's failure to meet standards and expectations. Hint: When an employee fails to perform adequately, the principal reason is oft the dominate's failure to coach!

Fault: In that location is no follow-upwardly action plan put in place at the terminate of the performance appraisal.
Solution: The final thing to discuss in a performance review conversation is "What next?" What steps does the employee need to take to make sure that areas for improvement actually improve? And what support does the employee demand from you to brand that happen? An action plan is the perfect element to conclude an effective functioning review discussion. Go on it uncomplicated. 3 or four next steps are just fine. Call up, this is the beginning of the next cycle in the coaching process. Continue it positive and practical.

Mistake: Any endeavour at pay-for-performance is ineffective because the divergence in pay for a top performer and a mediocre performer is then small as to be meaningless.
Solution: Well-intentioned attempts at pay-for-operation often backfire considering there is too little coin bachelor OR management is unwilling to brand the hard choices virtually giving big increases to top performers and no increases to poor performers. So they try to offer a token of performance-based pay, which often backfires. The difference between a three% increase and a 4% increment is meaningless in any real financial terms—and all it does is create jealousy, hurt feelings, and resentment among employees. My advice: If you tin't come with REAL money for REAL pay for performance, don't practice it at all. You're better off giving everyone the same percentage increase.

Are you a new manager trying to larn the ropes on the job? The AMA provides many resources to help brand the transition easier, including this webinar for new managers. Or go on your leadership training with our seminar on Preparing to Lead.

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Nigh the Author(south)

BJ Gallagher is a Los Angeles workplace consultant, speaker, and author of Yes Lives in the Land of NO: A Tale of Triumph Over Negativity (Berrett-Koehler; 2006). You tin contact her at  or her web site, www.yeslivesinthelandofno.com.

Larn more than about managing performance reviews with the AMA webinar:
Difficult Performance Reviews: How to Turn Painful Conversations into Positive Results