Podcast — How to Give a Review People Actually Value

Learn how to give an effective performance review, and you have a great tool to motivate and develop team members, alongside giving them realistic feedback about their performance.

According to a Gallup survey, just 1 in 5 employees agree performance evaluations were motivational.

Most team members see performance appraisals as time-consuming, demotivational, biased and unfair.

Make performance review meetings you run a lot more useful and beneficial to team performance.

I was pretty nervous giving performance reviews for the first time, particularly when I was given little advice or training on what to cover, and more importantly, how to cover it.

The right preparation will dramatically reduce your apprehension about running a performance review.

And if you've already conducted performance reviews, then get a lot more benefits for you and your team from the time spent preparing for and conducting performance evaluations.

So you know how to give an effective performance review we are covering.

Firstly, the preparation needed for great performance reviews.

Secondly, conducting the performance review.

Six agenda items to discuss.

And third, how to follow up after the performance review.

Three key actions to take.

Before we dive in, I want to cover what is the purpose of a performance review.

I think a performance review should do two things very well.

Firstly, provide an accurate, honest and useful evaluation of employee performance so they know exactly where they stand.

And second, to provide a development framework to help that employee become better as quickly as possible.

Feedback and development are both vital to motivate employees and give them the best chance to improve further.

Every manager should be working to get the best from the team overall.

So make development and improvement a key focus of employee evaluations.

My name is Jess Coles.

And if you're new here, Enhance.Training shares people management expertise, resources and courses teaching you how to build high performing teams.

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To make the performance review accurate, honest and useful to the employee and be development focused,

let's go through the preparation needed for great performance reviews.

In my opinion, an employee review should be a summary of all the feedback conversations you've had already during the year.

There should be no surprises to either party when conducting a performance review.

For a great employee appraisal process, setting clear expectations and goals for each team member and the team overall are vital steps to do as early as possible.

If the employee doesn't know and doesn't understand what is expected of them, how can you appraise their performance fairly and accurately?

How can they judge if they're doing well or poorly?

Ensure that personal and team goals are communicated regularly and clearly, both verbally and in writing.

Help each team member understand the activities and projects that they need to do to achieve their personal goals.

If they know what to do, they are much more likely to be successful.

Book in regular one-on-one meetings with each team member and provide them specific and actionable feedback, and then help them improve.

When you have clear goals and expectations, and when you are regularly providing feedback to your team members, the annual performance review meeting is just another meeting.

You won't be nervous, and your team members won't be nervous about the performance review meeting either.

Three additional preparation steps that I suggest you do prior to the performance review is

Firstly, book out plenty of time to personally review progress and performance against employee goals, at least two weeks before the performance review.

If you rush preparation, it will show in the performance review.

Lack of effort on your part is demotivational to the employee, and they won't listen to what you say.

Secondly, write specific notes with examples to take into the performance review.

Firstly, cover what went really well, notable achievements, the great skills and behaviours they use and display, and how they've helped the team deliver results.

Secondly, cover what they should focus on to become even better in doing their job, the skills, knowledge and experience they need.

Thirdly, go through how they can gain these, plus how you as a manager will help them do this.

For example, by providing specific opportunities, projects, coaching, etc.

And fourth, go through what they are not good at, what the missed goals were, and how they can do better next time.

The third key action is to ask your peers, bosses and team stakeholders for feedback on each individual in your team prior to the performance review.

I find this really useful to get a more balanced view of the employee's performance and to spot things that I don't get to see or might have missed.

At least a week before the performance review, I would speak to and or email the employee and ask them to bring to the performance appraisal meeting notes and examples of the four key areas.

These being, firstly, what went really well.

Secondly, what they think they should focus on to become even better.

Third, how they can gain the skills, knowledge and experience to become better.

And fourth, what they are not as good at, the missed goals they have, and how they can do better next time.

As you can see, most of the list is focused on the positives and development, not on the negatives.

Before the employee appraisal meeting, plan out the agenda for the review meeting.

I suggest you have six key agenda items being, firstly, the kind of intro and chit-chat and communicating the agenda.

Secondly, ask the employee to talk through their performance.

Third, give your specific feedback on performance and invite discussion.

Fourth, talk through the employee's career plans.

Fifth, discuss the employee development plan and the opportunities available.

And then sixth, jointly agree the goals and actions for both manager and employee.

With a clear plan of how to run a performance review meeting, you'll feel a lot more confident about conducting a performance review meeting.

The better your preparation, the easier conducting a performance review meeting will be for you.

Your preparation will be obvious and signals to your employee that you value them and want to help them become better.

Who wouldn't appreciate that?

So let's discuss how to conduct the performance review meeting itself.

During the performance review meeting, it is very important to be honest and diplomatic.

If you sugarcoat your feedback, water it down or you're not clear, your feedback will lose a lot of its value to your employee.

Providing you are diplomatic, considerate and aim to help them, being honest will not offend nor damage your relationship with them.

Always book a private meeting room.

I usually book out two hours, knowing that it will probably take less time.

Rushing the discussion will be very demotivational to the team member.

Going through each agenda item for the performance review meeting.

Allow a few minutes at the beginning of the meeting for a bit of chit-chat and small talk to help both of you relax at the start of the performance review.

Go through the agenda and ask if they want to make any changes.

To set a positive tone for the meeting, I would usually state something like,

I appreciate that this is a formal performance review meeting, but I want to make the meeting useful to you and your career.

I will not be talking about anything that we have not already covered in our one-to-one meetings.

I really want to hear how you think you have done over the last six months and how I can help you with your development.

I found a positive approach from the start really helps the employee performance appraisal meeting be more relaxed and useful for both parties.

Ask the employee questions and listen carefully to what they tell you.

By asking the employee to give you a self-review of their performance, you get their thoughts, of course,

and you also get a good insight into how self-aware they are and how honest they are with themselves.

To prompt them, if they need it, you can ask,

Firstly, what do you think went really well over the last six or 12 months?

Second, what do you think you should focus on to become even better in your role?

Third, how best do you think you can gain the skills, knowledge and experience you need to become even better?

Fourth, what didn't go so well for you?

What goals did you miss? What actions can you take so you can do better next time?

When they have finished speaking, you can ask them to give a quick summary of their key points or do this for them.

Now it is time to talk through your specific feedback.

Focus more time on the points on your list that you did not bring up.

Make your feedback as specific as possible.

Avoid general or high-level comments where possible.

I have included an example of specific feedback in the description, so do take a look at this.

Make your feedback fair and honest.

If they have done a poor job, tell them and explain why they are falling short of their peers.

Then focus on what they can do to develop and improve.

Keep your language positive and focus on the positive actions that they can take, regardless of how well they are doing.

When you have given your feedback, ask them to comment and provide examples where they disagree.

Have a two-way discussion and keep an open mind.

Before discussing the employee's development actions, I think it is really useful to talk through the employee's career plans.

What role do they want to do next?

Where do they want to be in a year, in two years, etc.?

Talk through what they need to do to get the next role that they are targeting.

Ask them for their views first and then add your comments.

When they have a clear picture of what they need to work on, you can help them create a development plan.

You might be putting together a development plan from scratch, or you might be updating a current development plan during the performance review.

The purpose of focusing on development is to help your team member do the best job they can.

This improves the team performance and helps progress your career as a manager.

Everyone wins.

90% plus of employees want to do a good job.

Things that stop them doing a good job include, firstly, not knowing what is expected of them.

Secondly, not knowing how to achieve what is expected of them.

Third, not having the skills, confidence or experience to take the actions, steps and activities to deliver against what is expected of them.

By agreeing development actions, you are giving them the next few steps for how to improve in the areas you are discussing.

Work out how you are going to help them achieve their goals.

What opportunities can you give them to build their skills and experience?

What mentoring and coaching can you provide them to help?

Or do you need to get others to mentor and coach them?

Create or update tailored and specific development actions for each team member during the performance review.

The outcome of a performance review meeting is a set of goals and actions that you have jointly agreed and committed to achieving.

The team member should have three to five key actions.

You, as the manager, should have a number of actions to help them achieve those goals.

Make sure the actions are smart, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Don't finish the performance review meeting without jointly agreeing actions.

After the performance review meeting is finished, a vitally important task is following up on the performance review meeting.

If far too many managers miss the opportunity to help their team members get quicker results, how to follow up after the performance review meeting?

I think you should include, as a minimum, these three actions.

Firstly, send a summary of the key points from the performance review meeting and the actions agreed.

Secondly, book in follow-up one-on-one meetings.

I'd suggest at least once a week or every other week for several months.

And third, plan out how and when you're going to deliver on your actions to help the employee.

In many companies, you have a formal performance appraisal form to complete.

Make the comments specific and focus on providing detailed bullet points for the actions.

This makes taking the next steps for them as easy as possible.

Use your one-on-one meetings to teach, mentor and coach so the employee completes their actions from the performance review meeting as quickly as possible and as well as possible.

I've included in the description a link to the seven ways to use one-to-one meetings to develop employees and improve performance,

which will help you get even more out of your one-on-one meetings.

A great way to encourage your team members to take action is to deliver on what you've promised or agreed to.

If you've delivered and helped them, they will feel obliged to take actions that they've agreed.

A great use of social pressure to get them moving.

Keep reviewing progress against goals with each employee and tailor your follow-up to keep them progressing in their development.

So in summary, learning how to give an effective performance review is so useful to motivate and develop your team's confidence, skills and ability to deliver.

The better your team performs, the better your career as a manager will develop.

Help your team to help yourself and your career.

To help you with how to run a performance review meeting, we have been through.

Firstly, the preparation needed for great performance reviews.

Secondly, conducting the performance review, six agenda items to discuss.

And third, how to follow up after the performance review, three key actions to take.

If you have any questions on how to give an effective performance review, 12 vital tips to action, please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you.

Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.