How to get to the point quickly in a performance review

Employee reviews are an important priority for most businesses. They give employees and their supervisors the chance to review the employees’ work and explore areas needing improvement. However, for employees and managers working tight schedules, they can also feel like a time-wasting chore.

The most effective performance reviews are collegial, brief, and clearly communicated. Managers should prepare ahead of time by outlining the points they wish to make. Performance reviews can also be used to solicit employee feedback, so managers should consider the types of questions they’d like to ask. Beginning the review with positive statements relaxes the employee and generates goodwill. Consider the sandwich technique: open with positive remarks, transition into constructive criticism, and end the review with more positive statements. Note that employees should feel comfortable expressing concerns related to their roles within the company.

Always avoid ad hominem statements. It’s the performance, not the employee, that’s being evaluated.

Namnlöst

Finish the meeting effectively, so that everyone can get back to work. 
Flickr/Mike Bade

The efficacy of a performance review—or the lack of it—is largely determined by the tone the manager sets for the meeting. Confrontational language and a terse, adversarial demeanor will likely cause the employee to stop listening or adopt a defensive mindset to ward off the verbal attacks.

Managers can practice ahead of time by creating inflammatory statements, and then modifying their language to be polite, without changing their meaning. It can be challenging to find words that clearly and accurately express information without sounding rude or blunt. This is a particularly important skill for employees who are sensitive or who have a history of reacting poorly to feedback.

Remember that truly effective performance reviews aren’t lectures. Think of them as a two-way conversation between respectful adults. Using disrespectful language lowers employee morale, and decreases job satisfaction. Positive and uplifting language, however, along with listening to the employee’s perspective, is likely to raise morale and thereby improve the quality of work.

Employee performance reviews shouldn’t take more time than necessary. To streamline the process, many managers keep detailed logs that track the work performed by their subordinates. Consulting this log before a review helps the manager see the “big picture” and comment on it during the meeting.

Logs may also be helpful to the employee because they’re a clear, visual record of their past work. Because they contain information gathered over time, these logs are also useful in squashing allegations that the manager “is playing favourites” or “has it out” for the employee without good reason.

The best performance reviews happen when both the manager and the employee go into the meeting prepared. Self-evaluations can be helpful in this regard: they encourage the employee to look at their past performance from several different angles. Employees who have already identified some of their weak areas and brainstormed possible solutions are less likely to feel personally attacked during their performance review.

Compared to employees whose managers simply read them the riot act, employees who take ownership of a plan to improve their work are more likely to feel motivated and optimistic. In these cases, everyone wins.

 

Don’t distract your hourly staff from their hard work. Be more efficient by using affordable performance management software from TribeHR.

 


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