Employee experience: effective performance review

If there is someone to pay special attention to, then it is your employees. A successful organization is the product of the efficient work of happy, passionate, and engaged employees. So how do you know if your employees are happy and engaged? The answer is evaluating employee performance.

Conducting employee performance reviews is important for several reasons. It helps you discover:

• Overall performance.
• The commitment of employees.
• Retention rates.
• Possible ways to improve your business.

And performance evaluations help with the self-development of your employees. By talking to your staff, you can understand their plans for professional development so go ahead and help them with that. This can lead to training opportunities, promotions, and other ways to improve your organization's productivity and profitability.

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So how can you use performance reviews to your advantage? How do you make them as effective as possible? We explain the options below.

How to approach Performance Reviews

It is important to schedule your reviews at certain points according to the business calendar. Most organizations, large or small, hold them:

• Quarterly.
• Twice a year, every six months.
• Annually.

Of course, some companies don't have reviews at all or they are too busy to engage with them regularly. But, it is important to have one at least once a year so you take the time to see how your employees are doing.

There is no specific process, but there is a structure that most companies follow; these steps include:

• Examine the productivity results during the last period, if the employee had a good or bad time.
• Address issues such as persistent tardiness, absenteeism, presenteeism, or excessive sick days.
• Set new goals, adjust old ones, and aim for new goals in time for the next review.
• Diagrams of work plans.
• Explain performance expectations.
• Discuss the possibilities of training and professional promotion.

Many performance reviews also have a scorecard for rating employee performance over some time. This can offer an easy way to visually spot the top performers in your company. For example, if you have 20 employees, you can view their respective scores to understand who is performing better and who is not.

Conduct an effective performance review 

It is important that you define how to review your processes.

This review can be like an interview in many ways, but it can be formal or informal, depending on what you'd like to get out of the performance review.

A suitable line manager will take on the duty, while small businesses usually have the main boss to take control and talk to co-workers; it's all up to you.

But the goals are the same, so you can follow this procedure:

• Set up your performance management system, which is a program to know how and when the reviews take place. Even if it's just once a year, it's important to know when and how you'll do it.
• In review, having a transparent perspective allows for smooth communication. This will also help before a review, as your employees will know what to expect during their review.
• Make sure the review is constructive, if a staff member has had problems in the last few months, for example, racking up a bunch of criticism won't help. Talk to him/her and find out what you can do to help.
• Keep records of the conversation and take notes; this can be useful later, such as if disciplinary action is being taken.
• Catch up with employees regularly. Don't wait six months for a follow-up. Weekly contact is a great way to ensure employees are satisfied with the progress they are making.

And while following business protocol, don't forget to keep it friendly. Your line managers must get along with their colleagues. Therefore, you can use it as an opportunity to help your employees with any problems that they may have. For example, if they request a better work-life balance.

Small changes like that can improve long-term staff retention rates while taking care of your workforce and making sure they are happy on the job.

The future of performance reviews

“When Brian Jensen told his audience of HR executives that Colorcon was no longer bothering with annual reviews, they were appalled. This was in 2002, during his tenure as head of global human resources for the pharmacist. In his presentation at the Wharton School, Jensen explained that Colorcon had found a more effective way to reinforce desired behaviors and manage performance: Supervisors were giving people instant feedback, linking it to goals, and handing out small weekly bonuses to employees; they saw doing good things.” This is a quote from the Harvard Business Review about the performance management revolution.

Although it was almost 20 years ago, the interview shows that a third of companies are abandoning traditional performance reviews. However, we don't think this is the end of the process as it can still do wonders for your business, but the trick is to evolve with similar technology and adapt it to your organization.

And one of the best approaches is to take advantage of employee surveys to engage with your workforce. You can send the performance evaluation surveys in regular periods. The market offers many performance management tools to automate and thus facilitate the entire process.

These steps can help you to:

• Analyze employee feedback.
• Act on any criticism to improve the company culture.
• Allow employees to provide confidential feedback for greater authenticity.
• Receive feedback digitally for easy access, without excessive paperwork.

There is no correct answer, of course. Whatever approach you want to take, no matter how innovative or traditional, remember what the goal of the performance review is.

It is to address any issues and help your employees. The net result can lead to higher productivity, lower turnover rates, and ever-increasing profits.

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