How to Succeed in Your Performance Reviews

For both employees and managers, the annual performance review is very important. However, for cultural reasons or negligence, too many companies "miss" this meeting. So, how do you prepare for it? And how can you make it a real management and progress tool? The performance review is a key meeting, which closes one year and opens another. It's a chance for an employee, and ultimately a company, to restart on a new footing. To avoid the most common pitfall of a performance review that feels like a "trial", you need to create a balance between two partners eager to find positive solutions for the future and set new goals for success.
The goal is to evaluate results, skills, the quality of professional behavior, a person's potential in their role, and to discuss training issues.

1- Establish Prerequisites
To conduct good individual performance reviews, you must ensure that, beforehand, senior management has clearly defined strategic, operational, and departmental objectives. In other words, you can't give everyone a sense of purpose and direction if the whole company doesn't have one. Human resources, for their part, must set up a clear performance evaluation process and provide practical support for both the employee and the manager. These two points are prerequisites for preparing any effective performance review.

2- Prepare for Your Review
As the "meeting leader", you shouldn't neglect anything, neither in the preparation, nor in the process, nor in the "post-review".
For it to be satisfactory for both parties, the process must be clearly established beforehand: who does what? What is the schedule to be followed? What information will be given? What decisions will be made?, etc. And it shouldn't be considered the ultimate management meeting of the year, but rather one component of the management arsenal: the review will be all the richer and more authentic if the manager has managed to free up time throughout the year to fully play their role as manager and coach. This can be done, for example, through monthly activity reports that will allow the manager to base the annual review on concrete facts observed and noted throughout the year.

3- More Than Talking: Listening!
Contrary to popular belief, during a performance review, the manager should listen more than talk. This doesn't mean they shouldn't be firm in their analyses. They shouldn't be the only one asking and answering questions either. The performance review is above all a place of exchange and listening that should allow for understanding.
It is also essential to be positive, both in the analysis of the past year and the year to come. Talk about the successes of the year, the strengths that made them possible, and areas for improvement. Then, based on the employee's suggestions, develop an action plan. What about compensation? You can discuss it, but don't set a definitive raise. The manager and HR both need an overall view of all employees to make a proposal to each one. This topic can be tricky; it's best not to address it at the beginning of the meeting.

4- Define the Training Plan
Beyond the analysis of results, successes, and difficulties of the past year, beyond the objectives for the coming year and development areas, the performance review is an opportunity to discuss the employee's development and career path, including a training plan. Before ending the meeting, the manager should summarize and specify what will happen next regarding training, compensation, etc. They should commit and keep their employees informed afterwards. The review will be all the more beneficial if the "master of ceremonies" is comfortable. But be careful, just because you have good interpersonal skills doesn't mean you know how to conduct a good review. You need to be trained in it, know how to listen, and delve into things. And it's important that the manager themselves be evaluated by their superiors on the quality of the performance reviews they conduct.


Philippe Montant General Manager ExeKutive.biz