Performance reviews are significant for any business. These reviews allow individuals sitting on each side of the table to gather facts and thoughts and become clear on the areas that require improvement as well as those that are working great. Furthermore, they improve communication, maintain a fair and transparent reward system, and keep your employees focused on achieving the company’s goals.
However, it is only possible with adequately designed and conducted performance reviews which most employers and companies struggle with. So, we have listed 5 excellent tips on engineering your performance review that will bring out your employees’ potential and put them on the right track of work. But before getting into the details, let’s have a clear understanding of what we mean by performance reviews.
What Is a Performance Review?
Employee performance reviews are also known as performance appraisals, employee appraisals, or performance evaluation. All these terms refer to a system of formal assessment of an employee’s performance and include documentation and evaluation. This assessment identifies the strengths and weaknesses of an employee and facilitates him with feedback and sets goals for his future performance.
Most reviews include evaluation of an employee’s performance in these areas:
- Quality and precision of work
- Capacity to meet set goals and given deadlines
- Communication skills
- Teamwork and cooperation skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Dependability and attendance
There are many kinds of reviews and most differ from industry to industry, and firm to firm. Companies use questions, response formats, rating scales, and other form-free and form-based techniques to perform reviews.
5 Tips for Excellent Performance Reviews
1. Conduct Reviews Frequently
Choosing to conduct a performance review annually is a safe choice, but not the best one as it misses out many opportunities. On the other hand, regular reviews and feedback can lead to improved employee performance through continuous monitoring. Regular reviews will keep your employees focused on the project and their duties as they are aware that they will be evaluated for their work shortly afterwards.
You can opt to arrange performance reviews at the end of your important projects, or you can set one after every three months. Go for the frequency that suits your business but make sure that your employees know when it’s coming. Surprise performance reviews do not make employee performance better as you might think.
2. The Review Must be Based on Key Points
Pointless chatter will not lead to any productive outcomes and will only be a waste of time for both parties. So, make sure that your prepared review covers all the essential key points regarding what were the demands of the project that your employee has worked on, what was his role and how successful was he in achieving those goals.
These key points should include all skills including organization, project, employee knowledge, and his approach towards work and anything essential for the job.
3. Provide Informal Feedback Before and After the Performance Review
Feedback as we already know is the response on a person’s performance on a task and is a standard business practice. Rather than conducting them formally and limiting them to once or twice a year, you could consider giving informal feedback egularly throughout the year.
Informal feedback will remove conversation barriers between you and your employees. If an employee is not working productively, have a discussion with him and ask him about the issues he is facing with his tasks and give suggestions to resolve it. On the other hand, if an employee is working efficiently, make him feel valued. Your appreciation and praise in the review will encourage the employee to work even more productively.
4. Don’t Forget the Peer Feedback
Co-working is a crucial aspect of any business, and it can be immensely helpful when reviewing your staff’s performance. Instead of merely giving your review to an employee, gather feedback from other co-workers as well. As a boss or manager, you can’t keep an eye on every individual all the time but including peer feedback will give you a complete picture of the employee’s performance.
Not only will it help you in analyzing an individual’s work efforts, it can also give you a valuable insight about your workplace environment and your staff’s personality.
5. Start and End With the Positive
This might be the second most important thing after the factor of key-points-based review. Every business wants a productive employee, and negative communication discourages it.
If you prefer to do a review in-person or conduct it in written form, try to start with a positive note and with informal sentences, instead of directly approaching the review with the employee’s shortcomings.
Do
.”How are you?.”
“Hope you and your family are doing okay.”
“You have performed well in these areas.”
“I have seen that you paid attention to your work and tried to do it well.”
“I know you are a good employee, and I am sure you will perform well only if you pay a little attention.”
Don’t
“You did this and that wrong.”
“You have not done a satisfying job with these tasks.”
“Your work was not up to the standards.”
Then, proceed to talk about where things went wrong. It will put the employee in a more favorable mindset as it makes them more acceptable to the suggestions for improvement. Positive ending notes will leave a good impression, boost employee morale, and affect his behavior positively towards work.
Whichever form of employee performance review you prefer, just keep in mind that commenting with clear and positive language is fundamental towards keeping the review goal-focused and productive.
