Ditch the dull reviews: spark curiosity, lift spirits and help your team grow and thrive with these tips from Paul Heath
Managing employee performance is an essential part of any leadership role. While many organisations consider an annual review an integral part of the performance management process, some firms are beginning to scrap them. But why are some businesses turning away from the practice of an annual performance review? Should they keep them? And how should training and learning and development executives adapt such reviews to fuel employee curiosity and growth?
Treating an annual review as a tick-box exercise won’t achieve anything if employees do not feel that their performance matters
Establish the goals
To begin with, L&D executives should consider what they want to achieve with the performance review. Is it to review an individual’s remuneration package or to benchmark employees’ performance against each other to guide the organisation’s talent strategy for the year ahead?
It is vital that all parties agree on the goals, as this allows employees to do the appropriate preparation and ensures that there are no surprises. As many L&D executives will know, when performance management activity is regular and ongoing, the annual review becomes a formal summary of what the employee already knows and aligns with their expectations. Businesses that do this well are more likely to maximise the value of annual review conversations or remove them entirely.
Common pitfalls
Nevertheless, training executives should be aware of several issues with reviews. A common way businesses limit the value of annual performance reviews is by making them too big or too small. Putting too much time and effort into a substantial annual meeting could indicate insufficient performance management throughout the year.
Similarly, treating an annual review as a tick-box exercise won’t achieve anything if employees do not feel that their performance matters. Such behaviour can affect morale and limit opportunities to foster curiosity and boost performance.
How to fuel curiosity and enable growth
If businesses continue the yearly cycle, three core values should shape an effective performance review: honesty, care, and fairness.
Establish how honest both parties can be. The performance review must address what has and has not been good throughout the year. It can be helpful to approach it with the ‘react, then act’ principle. Listen to what the employee is sharing about their overall performance, provide a reaction to this, and then ask what actions this might generate for the year ahead. These actions should be discussed and agreed upon.
Reviewers should demonstrate that the business cares about its people, the value they add, and the results they achieve. Communicating in this order encourages better engagement and reduces defensiveness. People feel that they matter, not just what they do.
Finally, L&D executives should ensure the review focuses on what they know to be true. Clearly define how value is measured. Most businesses have an established rating scale, so use this to remind employees where they sit regarding expectations. Prioritise a personal approach; focus on what is specific to the individual and their performance.
Emotion overrides logic, so meet it with tangible measurements and evidence. Using evidence will help mitigate the risk of being overly influenced by feelings that undermine logic. Of course, knowing how people feel about their performance is essential, but it is also vital to ensure these feelings are grounded in specific, measurable actions
Structure
With these values in place, training and L&D executives should break an annual performance review into four clearly defined stages:
- The initial setup, where both parties agree on the purpose of the evaluation.
- Self-reflection, which involves asking key questions, listening carefully to what is and isn’t being said, and reacting.
- Future growth, where goals are discussed and agreed upon.
- Next steps, including booking regular performance review discussions for the year ahead.
A general recommendation is that around 30% of the review is spent looking backwards, with 60% looking forwards.
What an annual performance review looks like will depend on what is right for the business. However, if L&D and training executives follow these principles, annual reviews can be valuable in fuelling curiosity and enabling growth for the year ahead.
Paul Heath is Head of Client Solutions at OnTrack International
