The DOs and DON'Ts of Operation Reviews

Jan 07, 2020

Past BJ Gallagher

Is there anyone in the workplace who has not undergone the torture of a performance review done desperately? I'm sure we have all had to endure the torment of a well-intentioned but badly-executed operation appraisal—in which nosotros felt every bit if nosotros were the ones beingness executed! Blindfold, anyone? Got any final words earlier the exact assault begins? I don't even smoke but I'm tempted to ask for a final cigarette!

Most operation review systems in most organizations are so poorly designed and conducted that they actually do more harm than practiced. I ofttimes tell my clients that they would be better off doing nothing rather than doing what they're currently doing! I'm non kidding.

Here are 10 common mistakes managers brand, and tips for avoiding them. These are applied activity steps yous can have to design and implement a system that will do what y'all want information technology to do—better performance!

Mistake: The performance review is a ane-way, pinnacle-down process in which the dominate serves equally gauge and jury of employees' behavior and achievements on the task.
Solution: Make it a two-way procedure, at the very least. (If you really want an effective review organization, design a 360-degree arrangement that involves peer reviews as well every bit a self-review.) The employee should have written a self-appraisement prior to the meeting with his or her boss—a written document comparable to what the dominate is preparing. That way, both people in the coming together will be focused on the documentation of task performance, instead of the boss focusing on the employee. Call up: Nosotros practise not evaluate people—we evaluate their results.

After a brief setting-the-tone introductory annotate or two by the dominate, the employee should be invited to get over his or her self-appraisal first. This helps eliminate defensiveness and gets the meeting off to a skillful commencement by establishing that information technology is a dialogue, a ii-manner conversation in which both parties can share observations, perspectives, and comments about chore performance.

You'll find that your top performers will usually rate themselves lower than you do. That's because they accept high expectations for themselves—frequently higher than you take for them. You'll find that the opposite is as well true: Your poorest performers volition ofttimes rate themselves higher than yous rate them. Whatever the situation, talking about the gap between your evaluation and theirs will be fruitful in getting y'all both on the same page (both literally and figuratively) in terms of futurity expectations.

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Fault: The review process tries to serve equally a coaching tool for employee development, likewise as a compensation tool to determine salary increases.
Solution: Your performance reviews should be done for either development OR for compensation—not both. If you lot're interested in coaching and development for improved results in the future, so unhook compensation from the procedure and focus only on the piece of work itself. Conduct your performance review discussions as far away as you can from the time of twelvemonth when salary decisions are made.

If y'all're doing reviews in lodge to make bacon decisions, that's fine—simply be articulate that that'southward what you're doing. So you can conduct your review conversations in the few weeks just earlier raises are announced.

The problem with trying to combine both employee evolution and compensation decisions in the same session is that employees are only going to pay attention to the money—all the rest will go in one ear and out the other. You will go no coaching benefits from such a conversation. Employees will appear to be paying attention to what y'all're proverb almost their performance, but they're actually just waiting to hear the magic number. Coin talks—all else is lost.

Mistake: The person doing the appraisal has trivial or no solar day-to-twenty-four hours contact with the employee whose operation is beingness judged.
Solution: This 1 is a no-brainer. The person having review conversations with an employee should be the supervisor or manager who has the most contact with that employee and is in the best position to accurately appraise twenty-four hours-to-twenty-four hours results.

Error: Employees receive lilliputian or no advance notice of their "Judgment Day."
Solution: Performance discussions ideally should be conducted on a regular basis, on a schedule well-known and well-publicized to everyone in the organization.

Mistake: Managers are vague in their feedback to employees. Or they assign capricious numerical "grades" with little or no substantiation.
Solution: Performance feedback needs to be well documented in order to be constructive. Here's where information technology helps to have a good paper trail—documentation of both the good results and the not-so-expert results.

Don't rely on your memory in outlining how well the employee achieved his or her goals and met your expectations. (The human memory is a mismatch detector and it will always do a adept job of remembering the bad stuff, while forgetting the good stuff.) Keep a file on each person who reports to yous, and brand regular notes to yourself on behavior and results as you lot observe them—the good, the bad, and yes, even the ugly. Encourage your employees to proceed files for themselves, so that they, too, have documentation when they are writing their self-appraisals. Mutual documentation helps keep anybody's focus on the job, not on the person.

Fault: The review process tries to evaluate traits, rather than behaviors and results.
Solution: This is 1 of the nearly mutual mistakes I run across on performance review forms—they attempt to evaluate personal traits, such as leadership, motivation, conscientiousness, attitude and and so on. The trouble with traits is that they are internal and subjective— almost incommunicable to evaluate on a fair basis.

Instead of traits, continue your evaluation focused on two things: Behaviors and results. Behaviors are actions that you tin can discover straight—she did the filing, he answered the phone, she called on customers, he repaired the machines, so on. Results are as well appreciable: She achieved her sales quota, he reduced waste product past Ten%, she increased productivity by Ten amount, he completed his projects on fourth dimension, and then on.

Mistake: The appraisal is a once-a-year upshot that everyone tries to get through as chop-chop as they can, considering it'south painful for bosses and employees akin.
Solution: The master goal in evaluating performance is to improve information technology. Therefore, you desire to design a meaningful system of coaching conversations that people welcome, detect useful, and deem valuable. Employees need regular feedback on how they're doing—what they're doing well and what needs comeback. In one case a year just doesn't cut it. Design a uncomplicated, like shooting fish in a barrel to utilize system that encourages bosses and employees to engage in two-way conversations throughout the twelvemonth—that'south the only style you lot'll get whatever real mileage out of a functioning review system.

Mistake: There is no investigation of causes that underlie employees' job performance issues.
Solution: People don't perform poorly for no reason. At that place are always causes—but you'll never know what those causes are if yous don't make the review process one of requite and take, back up and coaching, with both parties focused on the same objective—doing the all-time job possible.

If an employee is performing poorly, ask questions. Don't presume you know the reason—or leap to conclusions that he'southward lazy, she's impaired, he's unmotivated, or she'southward incompetent. Use your performance review conversations as opportunities to find out what are the possible reasons for an employee'southward failure to run into standards and expectations. Hint: When an employee fails to perform adequately, the primary reason is oft the boss'south failure to motorbus!

Error: There is no follow-upwardly action plan put in identify at the end of the performance appraisement.
Solution: The concluding thing to discuss in a performance review chat is "What next?" What steps does the employee demand to accept to make sure that areas for improvement actually improve? And what back up does the employee demand from y'all to make that happen? An activity programme is the perfect element to conclude an effective functioning review discussion. Proceed it simple. Three or iv next steps are simply fine. Remember, this is the beginning of the next cycle in the coaching procedure. Keep information technology positive and applied.

Mistake: Whatsoever effort at pay-for-functioning is ineffective because the deviation in pay for a top performer and a mediocre performer is and then small as to exist meaningless.
Solution: Well-intentioned attempts at pay-for-functioning ofttimes backlash because in that location is as well lilliputian money available OR direction is unwilling to make the hard choices most giving large increases to top performers and no increases to poor performers. And so they try to offering a token of performance-based pay, which oft backfires. The divergence between a 3% increase and a 4% increase is meaningless in whatever existent financial terms—and all it does is create jealousy, hurt feelings, and resentment among employees. My advice: If y'all can't come upwardly with REAL money for Existent pay for performance, don't do it at all. You're improve off giving anybody the same percent increment.

Are you a new manager trying to learn the ropes on the job? The AMA provides many resources to help brand the transition easier, including this webinar for new managers. Or continue your leadership training with our seminar on Preparing to Atomic number 82.

Related manufactures

  • Skills for Effectively Coaching a Virtual Team
  • Performance Review Hooey
  • Become a People Builder: How to Maximize Employee Performance

About the Author(southward)

BJ Gallagher is a Los Angeles workplace consultant, speaker, and author of Yep Lives in the Land of NO: A Tale of Triumph Over Negativity (Berrett-Koehler; 2006). You tin can contact her at  or her web site, www.yeslivesinthelandofno.com.

Learn more well-nigh managing performance reviews with the AMA webinar:
Hard Performance Reviews: How to Plough Painful Conversations into Positive Results