Yearly reviews are commonplace in many organizations, but they are often dreaded by both the reviewers and the employees being reviewed. Managers feel uncomfortable giving out negative feedback, while those reporting to them stress while anticipating the feedback.
The main problem of annual reviews, aside from their negative connotation, is that they are largely ineffective. A study found that job appraisals negatively affected job performance more than one third of the time. As a result, many companies around the world, such as Microsoft and Gap, are phasing out traditional annual reviews altogether. However, performance reviews can be effective if the leaders correct mistakes they are making in this process! Read on to find out if you are making common mistakes during the evaluation meetings with your staff and how you can ensure yours is successful.
Not Timely
Another problem with the annual review is that it’s only given once a year. That is not nearly enough time for managers to be able to provide productive feedback and work together with their employees to make relevant changes.
When you sit down with a staff member in December and mention something that occurred in May, the individual may have no recollection of the incident. Therefore, leaders have to provide timely feedback instead of waiting a year to bring something up.
The most beneficial feedback is immediate, or at least timely, brought up within a few days of the occurrence; otherwise, it is just pointless. While a formal meeting to discuss the yearly performance may be helpful when discussing promotions or raises, feedback should be regularly provided during the course of the workweek.
Focusing on the Negative
Bosses often misunderstand the main point of the performance review, which is to help employees work more productively and efficiently. Instead, they consider this a time to air their grievances and dissatisfaction with the team member. Even if the individual is performing up to the standards most of the time, if the supervisor focuses solely on what needs to improve during the review, it may negatively impact the loyalty and job satisfaction of the person.
Even if you have an employee who is underperforming in many areas, it is helpful to first bring up something positive about their efforts before concentrating on the negative. Consider the small things that the person may be getting right, like the fact that they are always pleasant, to bring up before moving on to what they may need to improve.
Not Setting Benchmarks
The feedback given out during a performance review will likely not amount to anything unless measurable and realistic benchmarks are set and agreed upon by both the employer and the employee. It’s not enough to tell a subordinate that they need to work faster; to help them become more productive, set small goals that the individual can work towards.
For example, if you need a staff member to work faster, instead of telling them to do so, you should count how many tasks the person currently accomplishes in one week, and increase that by 5 percent per month to see if they can ultimately speed up by 15 percent. It’s important for managers to be involved in this process, observing current behaviors, setting goals and then measuring the employee performance to see if they are meeting those goals.
The reason performance reviews get a bad rap is because many managers are not doing them properly. Sitting down to provide feedback only once a year, focusing on the negative and not setting benchmarks makes the process ineffective; however, making small changes can positively impact both the person and your company.