Say goodbye to the annual performance review

Many people dread performance reviews. As annual review time approaches, employees often become anxious and managers find excuses to put them off, mainly through a fear of the unknown.

Whilst reviews should be about providing constructive feedback and receiving the same from employees, they often end up being a waste of time and energy, leading to employees and managers becoming disillusioned with the process.

Traditional performance reviews conducted on an annual or biannual basis are fast becoming out-dated, and there is a need for a more timely and relevant system.

CULTURE OF FEEDBACK

Nearly every new employee engagement survey we conduct identifies that the main issues employees have within their workplaces tend to be around lack of feedback and communication from management.

Employees find themselves being lumped with feedback from management spasmodically or at the annual performance review, much of which is often skewed depending on their performance on the most recent project (the ‘recency effect’). In addition, employees often feel ‘left out of the loop’ on important changes within the business because management simply hasn’t found the time to communicate these decisions, and the reasons behind them.

In order to establish a culture of feedback, organisations must adopt a more consistent process which involves continuous feedback and communication between management and employees.

CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE REVIEW

We believe organisations should do away with the annual performance review system and instead embrace the continuous performance review model. This involves management meeting with their employees each at least monthly to discuss what’s going well, what could be going better and future goals, plans and development requirements.

These discussions need only be 10 or 15 minutes in duration, but the benefits will be significant.

Establishing a culture of continuous feedback and communication will help:

• Decrease anxiety and frustration with the performance review process;
• Increase employee engagement;
• Promote continuous learning and improvement;
• Identify and address development needs sooner; and
• Retain quality employees.

These benefits all work together to reduce employee turnover and save organisations time, headaches and money.

OUR ROLE

As human capital advisers, our role in the continuous performance review process is one of process development and management. We support organisations through each step of the review process by:

• Creating a practical framework and templates suited to each organisation
• Organising meeting schedules for managers and employees and ensuring regular meetings are taking place;
• Guiding managers and employees through the meeting process and facilitating meetings if required;
• Recording feedback from meetings and running pulse-check reports
• Implementing learning and development plans

Contact us for further information about implementing continuous performance reviews in your organisation.