I’m not sure about you, but a number of times during my corporate life, I walked out of a performance review thinking: “Well that was a waste of everyone’s time”, and sadly I hear from many employees in the businesses I work with that they’ve experienced the same sentiment, hence, most of them seem to hate or dread performance reviews. Well let me re-phrase that, they don’t necessarily hate them, they’ve either never had one or at least a good one, so see them as adding no value. So why did I and many others who have had performance reviews end up feeling like that? The feedback I’ve had is usually at least one of the following reasons:
- “It was obvious the person giving the feedback had not really taken the time to reflect on my achievements or areas for development, so it felt like they had nothing of real value to say to me”.
- “They might have been the boss, but they weren’t my direct manager, so how did they know me well enough to comment on how good or bad I might be at my job?”
“They told me how wonderful I was which was very nice, but they didn’t give me any constructive feedback on areas for me to work on, which left me no direction to go in – I didn't feel like they really cared to even bother trying”. - “They didn’t have the courage or the skills to address the problem areas that existed at all, so I was left hanging with no room for any discussions”.
For me, it was usually that I wasn’t given any areas for development by my Manager. So if I was that good, why wasn’t I the CEO already?! As a result, my own learning & development pathways were left up to me, and luckily I was pretty driven that way anyway so I made steady progress. Many times it's just that Managers have never had a decent review themselves so didn't really understand the value of planning or giving a good review to their team members in the first place.
To help make sure you aren’t left without anything valuable to say to your team members, what are a few key things you could do upfront to ensure that the conversation is real, impactful and useful for the person/s being reviewed?
Here's a few ideas:
Approach the reviews for your team members from the position that you as their manager really values this process and that you want it to be of value to them too. Discussing them upfront helps reassure your team members that this process is not a waste of their (and your) time, but is something you are committing real time to doing well. When you allocate time to seriously reflect on their performance, gather data from other sources and give them useful feedback, your comments will demonstrates this, you will gain their trust by following through and the process does become of more value to everyone.
If you are new or even experienced, it pays to use a structured document and process to complete a review for each team member. Ask them to do a self-assessment using the same document that you're using, then the joint conversation can focus on the areas when yu agree, and where you disagree. This helps align expectations, ensure fairness between team member reviews, and supports a consistent approach which is key, especially if there is a payrise at the end of it. I don’t mean you have to approach everyone the same way because a) we’re not the same and b) people's jobs vary, but you can focus your effort on having a quality and valuable conversation when you’re familiar with the process and documents you’re using.
Spend some time reflecting on each team member's performance AND their behaviour, because good feedback is multi-faceted. You might have a technical super star performer in your team, but that person has a terrible attitude which needs to be addressed. This is the perfect time to do it if it hasn't been dealt with before. If they get a payrise due to their great results but their poor attitude is tolerated with no consequences, you risk losing other steady, good workers becasue they end up disillusioned or demotivated. Open your eyes to what’s happening to the wider team and deal with it. The negative loss of many will likely outweigh the positive results of one.
Consult with others that work with each team member to get more input on what they do well and where they could improve. If you do this with everyone, it increases the chances of people feeling they are getting relevant, current and balanced feedback. It’s not “dobbing someone in”, but it is a great way for everyone to hear what they do well, and where they may need to improve, and you may just get some gems you didn't expect.
Come up with areas of good performance that you want to recognise and give positive feedback around, but also look at where you can give constructive feedback about where they can do better or areas they need to continue to grow and learn in. There are always areas where we can improve personally or professionally if we look deeply enough, and most people want to improve if they can. If there genuinely isn’t any area for improvement in their behaviour or performance, then I perhaps it's time you look at what additional challenges or projects you can offer them, swap their job or give them a promotion if you can to keep them engaged. For ambitious people or those who love variety, not being offered new challenges puts them at risk of leaving and some managers I know even suggest to high performers who have advanced as far as they can in this job, that it might be time they go elsewhere if they wish to advance further and they can’t have those opportunities "here". These are brave conversations to have. Of course some people are genuinely happy to stay where they are and do the same job very well for years, but many others aren’t, therefore it's important to have a good idea of what each person's dreams and goals about their next step are.
Finish the review conversation off with learning and development and forward looking goals, summarise with a simple thank you for your commitment and effort where relevant, and let team members know in a timely manner about any bonuses,payrises or changes to employment terms & conditions if that's your normal practice. Don't leave them hanging.... of course this means pre-planning in this area is needed too.
If you follow just a few of these ideas, perhaps your team members (and you), may actually end up enjoying the experience and actually feel it was a worthwhile and valuable exercise, but if it still feels hard and you need some help to get underway, feel free to reach out and I'll happily give you a hand!
