We have all been there, sitting in front of a performance review that just seems too daunting. As an HR representative, we want to ensure that the performance reviews that we create for our organization maintain a level of clarity, conciseness, and topicality. To make life a bit easier we will break down a performance review into those three categories, and craft the perfect review
Clarity:
44% of employees report that the reviews they get directly affect their performance in the following review period, the remaining 56% did not understand what they were supposed to be evaluated on, or what behaviors were supposed to change. This is where clarity of the reviews, and the topic/reason for the review is critical. Is this a quarterly skills review? A core value assessment? A project review?
The type of performance review, and the goal of the review must be front and center.
Conciseness:
We have all had the feeling of looking at our email inbox and feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information we have seen. Put yourself in your employees shoes, when they look at their review, do you want them to think "How am I going to get through this"? This phenomenon is called rater fatigue. By taking the length of your form, and combining it with clarity of the form, you allow for a review to be a breath of fresh air, not a daunting task at hand.
Make sure your managers and employees don't have to trudge through the review, keep it simple, keep it clear.
Topicality:
Why do I need to do this review? What does communication even mean for my role? Who am I sending this review to? The content of a review needs to be relevant for the employee so they know what they need to do. If an employee looks at a competency/question and asks themselves "Huh?" nine times out of ten there is going to be no actionable step after to fix any behavioral problems that might have come from there. Team/Department/Learning style based reviews will all have more of an impact on the person receiving the review, as opposed to a company wide copy paste review.
A review needs to directly have an impact on the individual being reviewed.
At ReviewStar, we always want to help. If you are having problems crafting your performance reviews, we can help! Click below to download the Seven Great Appraisal Questions PDF. We have designed this to help you start creating meaningful reviews.
Reviews are not always perfect. While we all wish that everything could have a perfect impact, the outcome is not always what we hope for. HOWEVER, we can focus on the little things we can change in our process to ensure that reviews become more relevant to our workforce. This will almost always lead to a feeling of understanding, rather than a feeling of burden.