Battling the annual performance review – Part 2
Kevin Baughen | 24 November 2008 | Blogs
I recently wrote a blog article suggesting that managers often don’t like the annual process of completing performance reviews. Form-filling, subjectivity and a lack of regular on-going feedback opportunities were all at the top of a recent survey as reasons why.
In the not-for-profit sector, we seem to be obsessed with due process and therefore have a form for everything, including appraisals, but the process need not be onerous. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, but here are my top tips for ensuring the process is effective for both manager and team member, as well as ensuring it doesn’t take three weeks solid out of your busy diary:
- Don’t save issues and praise for a one-off conversation, and make notes accordingly. A wise line-manager once told me that if there were any surprises in an appraisal, something had gone very wrong between the manager and their team
- Ensure team objectives are still relevant – don’t try to judge performance against a set of objectives agreed 12 months ago which are no longer applicable
- Make a point of communicating what’s keeping you awake at night (from a work perspective) with your teams and encourage them to help you find solutions through their own work. Hey presto, they will be achieving both their and your objectives (as of course, their delivery underpins yours)
- Understand how the system works — every organisation is different and you can’t work the system effectively until you know exactly who makes the decisions, when they’re made, and what factors are considered most critical
- Try to encourage your team to think like a marketer — understand their customers (including you) and demonstrate to you how their services deliver tangible benefits
- Use numbers and tangible examples — don’t rely on generalities if they can be avoided
- Your team will have an opinion so don’t be defensive — accept criticism (sometimes on behalf of the organisation) graciously and prepare professional counterpoints if appropriate
- Be creative with rewarding and developing team members. Flexible hours, days off, free lunches and professional training courses don’t necessarily replace salary increases and bonuses, but they do at least show your team that you value their contributions
- Do all of the above regularly! Managing performance should be a simple, regular process of conversations and not an onerous task. The annual form-filling is then merely a case of copying and pasting around notes you are both comfortable with
- Remember to do the same for yourself! If your manager isn’t holding true to these principles, try to drive the agenda by suggesting this approach. No-one ever got sacked for trying to be more effective whilst minimising the administrative burden!
Kevin Baughen is founder of Bottom Line Ideas, is a speaker for Cancer Research UK and a long-time advocate of blurring the lines between best practice across the charity and commercial worlds.
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About Kevin Baughen
Kevin is the founder of Bottom Line Ideas and has a deep-rooted passion for ideas that actually work in the real world. Those ideas help charities of all shapes and sizes to get their stories and messages to the audiences they need to hear them. And then persuade them to act!