Prepare
It may sound obvious, but it’s essential to prepare for each review well in advance. Every member of staff needs to be treated as an individual and their review should be prepared for separately. Consider each person’s progression since their last review, identify the good work they have done, any issues that you have come up against and how you see their career progressing. By looking at their previous review you can make sure targets have been met and both parties have kept to their side of the agreement. By attempting to run reviews ‘off the cuff’ and without correct preparation the review process is likely to become a waste of time.
Get feedback – don’t just talk
Reviews should be a two-way process; not just an outlet for managers to express their opinions of their employee. Be sure to have some questions lined up that you would like to ask and take note of what your team member is saying. Always get your employees’ view on how they felt their year has gone, things they liked or disliked, and where they would like their career to be this time next year. Understanding their feelings towards their career and the business, will inevitably make it much easier to manage them in the future.
Be constructive
Part of the purpose of a review is to highlight any issues from the past year. However, it is important not to use the session as a way of endlessly criticising an employee’s weaknesses. Be sure to match every problem or issue with an action or solution. This should be a joint exercise, so find out whether or not your employee agrees with you and also what they think could be done to resolve the issue. By doing this you are offering constructive feedback and creating solutions to any problems as a team. These can be agreed upon with a plan of action, rather than being an enforced measure put in place by the employer.
Set targets
It’s important that every review results in clear targets being set in agreement with the employee. The targets should be measurable and on a clear time-scale, focused towards them, their career progression and overall job satisfaction. The targets need to be agreed to on both sides rather than dictated by the employer.
Take action
Reviews should not end once everyone has left the room. The idea is to take a look back at recent months, but also to plan for the forthcoming months. Ideally, the actions that are agreed in reviews should be referred to on a monthly basis in order to make sure that both parties are heading in the right direction. For this reason, set short-term, monthly goals as well as longer term targets.
Leave staff motivated
Whatever the outcome of a review, and with promotions, bonuses and pay increases aside, it’s important to leave staff feeling motivated and with a view that the appraisal was a worthwhile exercise. For this reason, end the meeting on a positive note, highlight their good work and the areas that you will be aiming to improve and cover off some of the interesting things that are planned for the year ahead.
Write it down
Always write things down. The whole review process will become completely unproductive if nothing is documented in terms of what has been discussed, what actions need to be taken and what both parties have agreed to. By doing this, both you and the employee can quickly and easily refer to their previous review in order to highlight their progression or short-comings. Most reviews should be summarised and shared with the employee within a week or so, to be signed and agreed upon. This way you both have something measurable and agreed for the next twelve months.
