7 ways to rev up employee reviews

When it comes to managing employee performance, many companies miss the mark. And here’s why: Performance management means more than conducting reviews with employees once or twice a year.

If you only provide feedback at review time – sitting across a desk and going point by point through a rigid appraisal form – you’re overlooking many valuable opportunities to mentor, support and guide your employees.

For more relevant, results-driven performance management, you should:

1) Provide regular and immediate feedback year-round. To help employees learn from their mistakes and overcome their challenges, you need to share feedback that’s specific and timely. If you’re plugged into what your employees are doing day to day, and have worked to maintain an “open door” policy with them, confronting them with constructive criticism will be easier.

2) Set the right foundation at the beginning of the year. Create some structure around your expectations for the position and what a positive, productive year should look like. With the employee’s input, take the time to determine a handful of objective, measurable goals. Strive for goals that are challenging, but at the same time attainable.

3) Keep track of daily performance. A performance log lets you jot down notes about an employee’s good or bad behavior, as you observe it or hear about it. This information can be a handy reference for weekly or monthly discussions and certainly, a much more reliable resource at review time than your memory!

=> => OK, you’re keeping the lines of communication open with your employees and providing thoughtful feedback on a regular basis. But like most companies, you also need to complete a written appraisal and conduct a formal, one-on-one review. Here’s how to make the most of it:

4) Be prepared. This should be obvious, but make sure you’ve thought through what you’re going to say, and how you’re going to say it, before sitting down with the employee. Whether you use a standard performance appraisal form or some other written format for rating key performance factors, you still need to talk through the contents and fill in additional details.

5) Lead with the positive. Performance reviews can be as anxiety-inducing for the employee as they are for the manager or supervisor. Reinforce the employee’s strengths (with specific examples, of course) at the beginning of the review to set a positive tone and help put the employee at ease.

6) Make it a two-way conversation. An effective performance review is not a one-sided monologue by a manager. Rather, it should be an open exchange that allows employees to voice their concerns and offer new ideas. Creating this dynamic will help employees feel you value their opinions, which goes a long way toward increasing employee engagement and morale.

7) Focus on what matters to the employee. Job satisfaction plays a huge role in an employee’s attitude and performance. Just as no two employees are exactly alike, there’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” approach to reviews. An effective review should explore the issues that matter most to the employee, whether that means accepting new challenges, working on teams, taking on more responsibility or receiving additional training. If you know what makes an employee “tick”, you can tie more of those motivators into his or her goals and objectives.

7 ways to rev up employee reviews

You can go buy the book, and not go BY the book!

I will not throw away my books!
I will not throw away my books!

I ran across this blog post titled “Seriously if you have ever used a canned performance appraisal you should be fired” where the blogger blasts the use of books (Ready-to-Use Performance Appraisals, specifically) to write employee performance reviews.

“One thing being a manager isn’t? Being a color-by-numbers, manager-in-name-only job. If you’re too “busy” to give an honest performance review, get out of the business of being a “manager.” If you have ever used a canned performance appraisal, you should be fired. If you’re an HR trainer and think it’s okay to teach “managers” to use pre-populated, canned performance phrases…well, you should exit stage right, too.”

Whoa! Those are strong words for the manager who might turn to a book or reference guide for a little inspiration or to get “unstuck” when working on an employee’s annual review. While I agree that using only “pre-populated, canned performance phrases” is no way to appraise an employee (and perhaps even a sign of a lazy, ineffective manager), I also don’t think we need to shelve these books and guides completely.

The way I see it, these books are a tool – one of many in a manager’s toolbox that can be used to fix a problem, measure up a situation or build a better team. Just as a great cook might start with a basic recipe, but add his own flair with a dash of this or a splash of that, so can a great manager refer to a well-written book to create a balanced performance appraisal. Not sure how to address an employee’s time management issues? A book might help. Want to outline some new performance objectives to coincide with an employee’s recent promotion? A book might help. “Help” is the operative word here.

It comes down to this: If you’re a good manager, you shouldn’t treat performance appraisals as a once-a-year occurrence and you shouldn’t expect a book to magically write a review for you.

So when it comes to writing performance reviews, don’t go “by the book,” but don’t toss it aside, either. It deserves a spot in the manager’s toolbox!

You can go buy the book, and not go BY the book!

Pay-for-performance programs more popular in tough economic times

More companies are paying closer attention to their pay-for-performance programs than the traditional “automatic raise” systems, according to a recent study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

i4cp polled over 500 companies, revealing that 78% of companies tie pay to performance, with most of the focus directly on solid performers. In large companies with 10,000 or more employees, 84% tie pay to performance.

More than half of the companies surveyed (54%) don’t offer merit raises of any kind to low performing employees. However, merit raises for average and high performing employees varied only slightly. Average performers generally received raises between 3% and 4%, while high performers received between 4% and 5%.

The survey also found that companies are keeping a close eye on the accuracy of their pay-for-performance programs. The majority of companies (71%) said senior management is holding managers accountable for their rating accuracy. To ensure that accuracy, 73% of companies offer training for managers and supervisors who determine employee performance rates.

"Companies are becoming more willing to withhold merit raises for poor performers, but in general they are still not truly distinguishing the top performers from the average," says i4cp research analyst David Wentworth. "This could be due to a fear of creating a perception of unfairness when they are trying to find the fine line between the good and the very good. In this economy, where reductions in force are the norm, companies are really focused on how they treat the surviving employees."

Performance rewards most often come in the form of cash, with 69% of respondents providing a salary increase (74% of large organizations). Another 64% of companies (72% of large companies) offer a one-time cash bonus as a performance reward.

A smaller number of large companies (24%) and only 14% of all companies use stock options. The least popular rewards come in the form of non-monetary perks, with just 14% of companies using non-cash rewards.

The recession has forced pay-for-performance systems to the top of priority lists for many companies. The study found that 44% of companies cite the economy as the main reason for giving their merit-based programs higher priority.

Read more about the i4cp study. Visit the Performance Management section of the HR Library for more information on evaluating and rewarding employee performance.

Pay-for-performance programs more popular in tough economic times

What if your employees were volunteers?

There are thousands of ideas out there on how to improve employee performance without having to spend a dime, but “sometimes incentive and motivation programs aren’t necessary.”

That’s the message from Paul Hebert at Incentive Intelligence, ironically a blog dedicated to aligning behaviors and goals through motivation, rewards and recognition.

Last week, Hebert proposed an experiment that any manager, supervisor and coworker can try, that simply involves asking yourself one question:

“What would you do different if everyone you relied on for your business success was a volunteer?”

Volunteers are tied to their work with passion, not pay. They’re able to walk out of an organization whenever they please because they’re working because they want to, not because they have to.

Looking at your employees as volunteers forces you to identify their passion and discover why they’re working at your organization. Whatever their passion or reason for working, managers should create a mission and set goals that are aligned with employees’ passion.

“Managing volunteers means valuing contribution and working to match desire to function within the team to achieve the stated mission. Managing volunteers isn't about directing effort as much as it is about allowing effort to find it's best path.”

Hebert suggests that every manager ask themselves - “What would I do different if all my staff could just walk out tomorrow?”

What if your employees were volunteers?

How losing can inspire motivation

As this year’s March Madness college basketball competition comes to a close and those lucky few employees collect their winnings from the office NCAA pool, some may be saddened to know they may have picked better brackets if they would have paid attention to a recent study.

A new study out of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania examined 6,000 college basketball teams and found that teams that were slightly behind their opponent at half-time were more likely to win the game.

Wharton professors Jonah Berger and Devin Pope who conducted the survey, titled “When Losing Leads to Winning,” suggest that their findings directly tie into the workplace and how we set employee performance goals.

The researchers compare employees to basketball players in that they both will show more motivation and perform better when they are close to, but still short of, achieving a goal.

"Take any situation where someone is so close to a goal that they can almost taste it," said Berger in a recent Human Resources Executive Online article. "The fact that they're almost there makes them work harder."

Similar to the idea of setting “whisker” goals, Berger recommends that managers set milestones that are within reach of employees’ efforts. While “stretch” goals may be effective in motivating employees when confidence is high, setting smaller goals can spark an increase in performance when times are tough and confidence is waning.

"A lot of tools are used in the workforce to motivate people, such as wages, bonuses, etc. While surely these things can have motivating effects, one should not underestimate the potential importance of psychological motivation as well. This paper shows that the psychological impact of being behind by a small amount can cause significant increases in performance," said Pope.

Whether it’s on the basketball court or in the workplace, the Wharton study shows that small goals have the power to motivate. Pair those small goals with positive employee recognition for their shining accomplishments and help employees get moving on the road to success.

How losing can inspire motivation