Skip to main content

How to Run Effective Review Meetings

Performance reviews are essential, but employees find the experience abhorrent. So, what can you do to deliver performance reviews better?

To deliver effective reviews, you have to start early in the year by setting clear goals and expectations. And when it is time, you have to structure meetings in advance, provide feedback in a personalized manner, and follow up after the review.

Set the stage early

Performance reviews start at the beginning of the year with employees setting their goals. Here, you should set clear expectations for your reports and evaluation criteria that you will use for reviews later. Then, a couple of weeks before the review meeting, you can ask employees for a self-appraisal: their wins, losses, strengths, weaknesses, and learnings.

Structure your meeting

Avoid going with the flow and structure your review meetings. Like a movie script with three acts, you can deliver the review in three parts: explain the objectives, use tough or love, and let them respond.

Start with what matters most

Review meetings are not thrillers. Both you and your employee know the purpose of the appraisal. So, after you have told them the objectives of the meeting, it is better to cut to the chase and deliver the main message that will have the most impact on the employee. For example, if compensation is part of the review, discuss it first.

Tough or love

Most managers favor a "balanced" review with part praise and part criticism—a technique that almost always backfires. Employees despise template reviews, sugarcoating negative feedback, and "feedback sandwich" the most. You need to categorize your employees and then use the "Tough or love" technique by either recognizing their achievements or being tough for missing on goals.

Start, stop, continue

For your employees with good overall personalities, focus on the behavior for course correction. Use the "Start, stop, continue" method for behavioral nudges: Start this, stop that, and continue these.

Follow up

At the end of the meeting, ask your employees to send an email with their next steps or goals and how you can help. Following up on those goals is key to employee development.

There's no "one size fits all" template to run perfect review meetings. No matter how factual you make the evaluations, some employees will always find them judgmental. Still, these research- backed suggestions will help you improve the quality of review meetings, develop your employees, and fulfill the company's goals.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to boost performance with transparent goals

Top-down, cascading goal-setting doesn't work as it used to in today's hybrid, agile, and global business environments. It creates a culture of silos, reduces team alignment and agility, and encourages thoughtless tasks-driven execution. Research and real-world success stories suggest that making your goals open to your entire organization produces better results. The world's most successful companies, such as Google, Amazon, Deloitte, GE, Intel, Netflix, and Samsung, have transparent goals. Here's how: Use OKRs OKRs, or Objectives (What) and Key Results (How), is one of the most popular goal-setting frameworks. OKRs are public for everyone to see what objectives the company is trying to achieve and what others are working on. Using OKR s brings transparency and agility into your goal-setting. Read more about OKRs: Here, here, and here. Share goals, context, and results Communicate your organizational goals (the "Whats" and "Hows") with everyone in t
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Help Your Team Find Purpose and Boost Performance

Why a sense of purpose is so powerful A recent Gallup research showed that the more engaged the employees, the better their performance—even during the pandemic. Highly engaged teams outperformed on 11 business KPIs, including productivity, turnover, and profitability. Why are some employees more engaged than others? Why do some perform better under the same conditions? While there are many factors at work here, one stands out: purpose. Employees who find their purpose fulfilled at work are better in every way. Purpose gives meaning to people's lives, and not just at work. According to a McKinsey survey, 70% of employees said their sense of purpose is defined by work. The pandemic has made purpose even more critical to a company's success. While everyone struggles in one way or another, having a purpose at work gives it a meaning beyond making a living. How to help your employees with their purpose When you help your employees feel purposeful at work: engagement, productivity,
Post a Comment
Read more

How Performance Reviews Impact 3 Tiers of Success

Conducting performance reviews are important for any organization for various reasons. Firstly let’s try and understand what performance reviews are.  A performance review is a two-way, individualized conversation between a manager and an employee about performance impact, development, and growth. It is a critical component of an organization’s overall performance management strategy. Traditionally, performance reviews have occurred once a year and have focused on evaluating past performance. Modern performance reviews should happen quarterly or monthly and should focus on driving and improving future performance. Performance impact 3 tiers of success: Employee success: Performance conversations are perfect opportunities to make or break trust. An open, honest, and regular dialogue helps to build trust among employees, managers, and the organization at large. Employees want to know—and deserve to know—exactly where they stand in terms of performance. Ongoing performance conversations
Post a Comment
Read more