In this day and age, data collection and analytics is not only prevalent in the modern enterprise, but it is also the norm, and that truth extends to personnel management as well.  If you don’t apply the same methodical approach you use in other areas of the business to employee performance and efficiency, you’re leaving chips on the table.  This article is the second part of a three-part series I’ve been writing on performance review in business and will provide you with a few key considerations to make when planning for and carrying out performance reviews with your employees.  As a career team leader and executive in the tech industry, I’ve done many performance reviews and have seen the benefits that come with the process.  I’ve learned a great deal about how to perform them as well, and feel that I’m relatively well versed on the subject.  The review itself is naturally quite intimidating both for the employee and superior, but I hope to remove some of that stigma with this article and elucidate some of the nuanced differences between a good performance review and a bad one.  If you’d like to read my article about the various benefits of the performance review, CLICK HERE; otherwise, without further ado, let’s get into the article.  

Before even thinking about doing performance reviews, and generally starting with the onboarding process, you need to ensure that you have expressed clearly what you expect of your employees so that the performance review can actually bear fruit.  If you carry out performance reviews on an employee that has unclear expectations placed on them, the results from the performance reviews will be varied and skewed towards negative through no fault of their own.  If upon reading this you come to the realization that perhaps you have not clearly defined the employees’ roles in your business, formulate those roles and instruct them, then plan for performance reviews in the next quarter so that the instructions you have given can bear fruit. As a corollary of that point, make sure that before carrying out performance you have a clear idea of the direction and ideal state of your business so that the information you collect and the interactions you have can be properly contextualized. With those two points out of the way, I’ll now list 

1 Formulate a plan for your review that touches on information that is relevant to the overarching goals of the business.

In a way, this point extends upon the introduction section about understanding your goals, but in the context of formulating the actual review.  Always write questions with the ultimate goal in the back of your mind.  At the end of planning the review, reread all the questions and if the potential answers to those questions aren’t likely to support the main goals of your business, scrap them.  

2 Performance review questions should be informed by real-world examples and actual performance data rather than arbitrary metrics. 

You need to ground your reviews in reality so that the information gleaned is relevant and useful.  In many circumstances, the role of an employee transcends just the direct development of profit, so applying for example profit-centric analysis on support staff would yield unfavourable results because the context of the review is not properly defined.

Performance reviews are scary and can be terribly unpleasant if done incorrectly.  make sure that you remember that the employee sitting across from you is a human being with complex needs and desires.  Try to put yourself in their shoes and while both writing questions and carrying out the review and make sure that you are polite and personable to make the experience less intimidating and to alleviate some of the stress involved.  If the experience is well received, they will be more forthcoming in the future and the culture around review will become more positive in your business.  Now if the employee is negligent and lazy, no matter what you do the review will be unpleasant for them, because their shortcomings will come to light, and I’m not saying cater to them and tell them everything will be okay, my point is that you need to approach the review with equal parts analysis and humanity.

4 Performance reviews should be a conversation, not an interrogation

As a related but separate point from the last, reviews should be an open conversation where information flows between you, not a one-way street where you constantly pull things out of your employee.  They should be able to ask questions and converse with you about the metrics you are tracking, and you should offer advice on how best to approach the review and the job itself.  A review is a place for you to learn about the employee's work and a place for the employee to ask you questions and grow from your input.

5 Conclude the review with concrete next steps

This step is absolutely crucial.  Performance reviews should end, either immediately after the review, or as soon as possible once you have looked over the information, with next steps for the employee.  Advise them on how they can correct some of their missteps, or how you’d like them to pivot to a different focus for the sake of the business, or that you feel they deserve a promotion or whatever it may be; just ensure that the information you have received is processed effectively and transmitted back to the employee in a way that is useful to them.

6 Follow up

After having completed the performance review and given next steps, follow up with the employee to see their progress down the line. Make sure that they have applied the advice or instruction you have given them, and guide them and advise them if they need help.  The performance review should be a component of a holistic leadership strategy, not a one-off data collection event.

These are, in my opinion, the most important considerations to make when formulating and carrying out a performance review.  In the next article, I’d like to explore some of the various tools available on the market in the realm of performance review and personnel management, and that piece will be coming soon.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about performance review or logistical tools for business, please reach out to us here at Infowise or browse our extensive archive of articles and demos. Until next time.

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