Performance Appraisal Reviews
One of the benefits of regular data gathering and scheduled performance reviews is the opportunity they give you to identify potential problems early rather than having to resolve them after they have become a major incident.
These reviews offer you a chance to discuss current levels of performance and progress towards goals, as well as strengthening the working relationship you have with each member of your team.
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As a busy manager it is very easy for you to unconsciously become pre-occupied with 'doing' rather than 'managing.' These reviews enable you to promote real team building behavior: spending time with your team discussing their progress, listening to their concerns, and providing regular feedback will be far more effective than any number of 'team building' workshops or seminars.
For many managers the appraisal 'season' results in a significant increase in their workload. One of the big advantages of these regular reviews is that the time needed to prepare for the appraisal meeting is drastically reduced because you've been gathering and reviewing performance data during the whole appraisal period. In addition, regular reviews reduce your stress levels as they provide you with ample supporting evidence to back up your ratings as well as preventing unexpected surprises during the appraisal meeting.
The frequency of these meetings will be influenced by the nature of your team's work and the tasks that each individual is responsible for. If you set the reviews too close together you and the individual will see them as an irritation rather than an opportunity to mutually exchange details on their performance. The gap between reviews will also influence the length of your reviews; if they are more frequent they do not need to be lengthy. For example:
Quarterly - if you are responsible for a long-range project team where the goals require this amount of time (e.g. Length - 1hr)
Monthly - your marketing team have a variety of goals that mature at differing rates throughout the period (e.g. Length - 1/2hr)
Weekly/Fortnightly - you look after a customer support desk and issues arise frequently that you need to be quickly informed of so that a suitable approach for your team can be devised (e.g. Length - 15 minutes)
To prevent the workload of these reviews from becoming a burden, you should:
• Set a review agenda
• Conduct shared goal reviews
• Stagger your team reviews
You must treat these review meetings as you would any other meeting and set a timed agenda with listed items to be discussed. The topics you will be discussing are easily defined and will relate to the individual's goals and required competencies. A degree of formality also reminds the team member that these review discussions will form part of their overall performance rating.
For most team members, the topics discussed will relate to their most recent activities. However, you may also want to discuss how long-term goals are progressing. This is especially appropriate for a marketing or sales team.
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You may be able to group some of your team members into small groups (4-6 people) for their reviews if they have shared goals that they are working towards cooperatively. This ensures effective use of your time as you conduct one review rather than four or six just to get the same data. It also offers you the opportunity to observe the team members' interactions and pick up on potential problems before they become serious.
The ability to group reviews in this way is not always an option so you may want to stagger the reviews rather than have them all happening at once. You are the one who knows your team best, so you will need to judge which members of your team need to be reviewed more frequently.
You may choose to have longer gaps between your reviews with your more experienced members, giving you time to mentor and coach those needing the most support and guidance. You could also choose to alter the frequency of these meetings throughout the appraisal period so that they are more frequent as significant deadlines approach.
These reviews also ensure that you keep your performance data and observation notes up to date. Your files do not need to be elaborate, just easy to record and analyze as well as cross-reference the data against the individual's goals.
Prior to each review you have the opportunity to check that you have the performance information relevant to each goal and required competency. Where you find gaps you can look back over the past month to see if anything has happened that can contribute to the performance data. If not, you can focus on activities and events that will provide the data you need.
The following templates are designed to help you in this area. The Goal Attainment Template enables you to track and evaluate an individual's progress in attaining their annual goals. The Competency Observation Template enables you to keep high-level notes on each team member's progress in developing their competencies and the Competency Evaluation Template allows you to record how and when an individual displayed the required competencies identified in their last appraisal.
You need to ensure that do not find yourself at the end of the performance period with insufficient data to support your ratings. Making data gathering a scheduled activity removes the stress and uncertainty of relying on your memory or on any subjective impressions that you may have developed.
You may also be interested in:
Evaluating Performance Appraisal | Appraisal Data Collection | Evaluating Competencies | Performance Appraisal Rating Bias | Performance Appraisal Rating Scales | Writing an Annual Performance Summary.
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