The most important thing to do in a review
Managers often ask me, “What’s the most important thing I need to do in a performance review?”
The key to getting reviews right is to see the whole of your performance management as an ongoing cycle – not an event. Establish your reviews within a wider conversation about the person’s performance.
It should look like this: Review – 1-1 catch-ups – Review etc.
The 6 or 12-monthly review works best if it is in an environment of ongoing conversations about performance and development where you are regularly:
➡ giving and receiving positive and constructive feedback
➡ reworking goals
➡ setting actions to achieve them
➡ removing obstacles/providing support
As a leader, you need to be constantly hearing how people are going and talking to them about what you have observed… then there are no big surprise reveals at a review. Instead, the review is like a high point looking back over what they have achieved/not achieved and on toward future goals.
Some organisations even decide to replace formal performance reviews with an ongoing process of informal 1-1s and feedback conversations. This works well in fast-moving industries with project based work.
Each review point within the cycle is at the same time a beginning and an end –
➡ Each performance review should include a brief wrap-up of the past 6 or 12 months, and all the 1-1 feedback and conversations.
➡ Then the main emphasis of a review conversation should be a focus on the future – the upcoming 6 or 12 month period of performance.
If you want to improve your performance review process, reflect on your recent reviews with staff, and consider how much they have felt like part of a cycle vs a one-off event?
If they have been too ‘event-like’, how can you introduce more regular feedback day to day with your people so that the review feels more like a summary than a one-off, scary big-reveal moment?
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Harrowfield draws on the disciplines of organisational and behavioural psychology to provide fit-for-purpose training in human skills that build workplace capability and confidence.
Harrowfield People Development, a strategic learning agency.
