By Rhonda Campbell
Few things create an equal amount of discomfort in employees and managers the way performance review deadlines do. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mid-year or year-end appraisal. Hidden in the dread is a remedy, a solution that could help organizations improve morale, increase employee engagement and enrich customer satisfaction.
Problems with performance reviews
So, why do employees and their managers dread completing performance reviews? For starters, aside from reviews, managers don’t regularly sit down with their employees to discuss areas that need improvement, offer praise for a job well done or talk about training options and career goals. This can make employees feel as if, during performance review meetings, that they are talking to someone who barely knows them. Because managers weld the power to authorize promotions and salary increases, the discussions are awkward, at best.
To reduce their discomfort (or perhaps guilt), managers may cite an “open door” policy. However, “open door” is often just a catch phrase. As Eric Jackson, founder and managing partner of Ironfire Capital LLC, shares in Forbes, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve chatted with lazy bosses who use that line: ‘Oh, my people know I have an open-door policy and they can come to me to talk about anything at any time.’”
Jackson goes on to reveal that, “I would say 80% of the time in those cases, if I went to the reports and they answered me honestly, they would say that they typically don’t go to the boss because he or she is always on the phone or looks too busy.” Clearly, if managers met with employees at least once a week as well as offered employees instant feedback after they completed a project, resolved a customer’s complaint or closed a client sale, feedback provided in performance reviews wouldn’t come as a shock.
Steps to improve performance review reports and discussions
Steps managers (and employees) could take to make the performance review process smoother, less emotionally taxing, include:
- Set clear goals and deadlines at the start of the review period (by putting these goals and deadlines in writing, managers could avoid disagreements during performance appraisal meetings)
- Keep notes throughout the year on employees’ performance
- Meet with employees on a weekly basis to learn about challenges they’re experiencing, to communicate new performance objectives, etc.
- Direct employees to provide their feedback first, detailing how they met their goals (this process is often referred to as completing self-appraisals)
- Schedule face-to-face meetings to discuss feedback provided in performance appraisals
- Acknowledge extra work employees have taken on, especially if they absorbed the jobs of one or two other people after a downsizing, etc.
- Give employees time to ask questions, suggest their short and long-term career goals, talk about their concerns around upcoming changes at your organization (i.e. mergers, acquisitions, relocations)
- Follow-up with employees about key points discussed in reviews (this shows employees that their managers genuinely care about their work and their careers)
By receiving performance review training from human resource specialists, managers could discover additional steps they could take to improve their employee communications. They could also learn quicker ways to document employee performance, whether they’re using paper documents or a performance management system.
Above all, it’s crucial for managers to be honest with employees before, during and after they discuss their performance. And again, this is made easier if managers regularly communicate with their workers. It’s this honest feedback, immediate praise and acknowledgement of above average results that could improve employee morale and engagement. Furthermore, as worker satisfaction increases, communications workers have with customers may also improve.
Sources:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/206918 (Entrepreneur: How to Survive Employee Performance Appraisals)
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/the-problem-with-performance-reviews/ (New York Times: The Problem With Performance Reviews)
http://www.shrm.org/Publications/hrmagazine/EditorialContent/2012/1212/Pages/1212-performance-appraisal-training.aspx (SHRM: Train Managers, Maximize Appraisals)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/09/ten-reasons-performance-reviews-are-done-terribly/ (Forbes: 10 Biggest Mistakes Bosses Make in Performance Reviews)