Your guide to carrying out effective performance reviews and appraisals.
Performance reviews or Appraisals are a useful tool in managing your team effectively and can have a positive impact, not just on your team’s performance but on your overall business performance. However, for the performance review process to be productive and beneficial, certain steps and considerations must be taken.
If you would like further advice or support with how to do an appraisal or the appraisal process in general, our team of HR experts can help.
Who should be involved in the performance review process?
An appraisal is usually a one-on-one process involving the individual and their line manager only. However, sometimes (depending upon the nature of the role) the manager may need to refer to others to give feedback on past performance and to plan future objectives. The third parties could be customers, colleagues (senior, peer or junior), suppliers or other business contacts.
What resources are needed?
Some organisations have an extremely structured performance review process, with prescribed windows of time when they have to be completed, online forms with compulsory fields to be populated and uploaded, and a bell curve for managers to adhere to when distributing rankings. It need not be anywhere near as complicated as this in your business.
Key resources needed for an effective appraisal review
- A strong understanding of the member of staff’s role
- Good knowledge of the individual on a professional level: length of time in the role, background, experience, aptitude, qualifications and ideally their future career aspirations. And if you don’t know them beforehand – you can fill in some of the gaps on the day!
- A copy of any objectives set at or since the last appraisal. Objectives should be SMART.
- Some idea of the expectations of the role in the next 12 months
- Leading on from the demands of the role, there may be some development needs such as course attendance or mentoring. It is helpful for you to understand beforehand what might be useful or can be funded
- A quiet, discrete room in which to hold the appraisal meeting – with no distractions
- A means of recording your discussions – using whatever format is in place within your particular organisation
- Afterwards – an agreed write-up of the discussions so that there is a record for you and the staff member to refer to during the course of the coming months, and of course when you reconvene for the next appraisal meeting
When should it be done, and to what timescales?
When planning how to do an appraisal, timescales are an important consideration. Timing will vary from business to business, but most organisations complete them once a year. It is good practice to start with more senior staff appraisals first, as their objectives will usually set the strategy, which in turn will shape the content of team members’ targets at a more operational level. The time of year should work for the manager and staff member: for example, it’s probably best to avoid any peak periods (e.g., year end for accounts staff) or times when lots of people take annual leave. An hour should be long enough in most cases – and if it’s going to be a challenging discussion, it may be an idea to schedule it towards the end of the day so that the person can go home afterwards.
Give the member of staff at least a week to prepare for the meeting and think about what is going to be discussed. Provide the write-up of the appraisal within a week of holding it.
Wherever possible, avoid postponing or cancelling appraisal meetings: dedicating time for your people is important for business and crucial for making them feel valued and listened to – so protect that time!
Other considerations for how to conduct a successful performance review:
Try not to save performance feedback for appraisal meetings. Giving staff an idea of how they are performing in a role should be an ongoing process: there should be no shocks on the day either.
The member of staff should do plenty of the talking, and not just be “talked at” when you meet: use lots of open questions to find out how they are feeling, what they think they have achieved, where they see themselves heading work-wise and how they feel their role contributes to the objectives of the team and wider business.
And crucially…remember that having a constructive conversation about performance and objectives is the most important element of the process – not filling out a form!
For more guidance on carrying out performance appraisals, join us for our next one-day Appraisals Skills training course.
For support with developing and carrying out appraisals and performance reviews for your business, get in touch using our contact form here.
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