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How often do you give performance evaluations to your employees?
We used to do it on an as-needed basis, then moved to an annual review, and now are considering doing it quarterly. What are the pros & cons to having more frequent performance reviews?
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9 Answers
Ahhh, one of my favorite subjects. I've used 10-15 different systems in my career, one pagers to twenty, manager intiated, employee initated etc. I can tell you one thing for sure. No matter what type of system you use, they will all fail if managers don't buy into the fact that they are valuable. When discussing this subject with managers I find it's helpful to discuss what kind of feedback they like.
It goes something like this. You like it when your manager gives you positive feedback right? And it you weren't delivering to his/her expectations you like to know that as well right? (I've never had anyone say no to these two questions). Once I get the two answers, I remind them that the employees that work for them are just like them and want the same things.
As for a particular system, here's the one I prefer.
1. At the beginning of the year have a goal setting meeting where some number of goals are defined along with quality and schedule metrics.
2. Each qarter, hold a brief meeting to update progress and document it as Green for on schedule or complete, Yellow for behind but recoverable and Red for behind and unrecoverable. I sell this to managers not as a performance evaluation but rather a critical leadership tool to manage their business.
3. At the end of the year. a one page review with 3 blocks for each goal (did not meet expectations, met expectaions and exceeded expectations) and a brief explanation line.
The key is to 1. make sure the the manager buys into the fact that the quarterly meetings are really about checking on how THEIR business is running and 2. making sure that the annual review is brief and simply a rollup of the quarterly meetings.
As for timing, I like the annual at some other time than the merit cycle so the discussion is truely about performance rather than compensation.
Some organizations choose to use a formal review process more often than annually and that may be acceptable depending on the culture of the particular organization. However, conducting formal reviews too often can dilute the effectiveness of the process so it is important to consider the impact of doing formal reviews more often than once per year.
Typically a more effective approach is to create a culture where regular feedback is provided outside of the formal performance review process. In this scenario managers conduct more informal discussions about training needs, goal achievement, a job particularly well done, performance concerns, etc on a quarterly basis or as needed.
Having periodic discussions about goal achievement is central to a high performance, high accountability culture. These are all important to help managers and employees stay in alignment with respect to achieving their own goals to the overall success of the organization.
Create very specific expectations for managers about completing reviews on time. They need to understand that they will be held accountable for on time reviews. Many companies set up an annual performance review time frame for all employees instead of hire anniversary date for each employee.
Put tools in place for managers to journal and document employee performance “activity” throughout the review period and create an expectation that they use the tool and place entries into the journal on a routine and regular basis. This helps ensure accurate and relevant reviews when it comes time to complete the actual annual employee evaluation.
It's important to create a performance development culture in which performance reviews are an integral part of advancing employee performance.
Jeanne, what are you trying to achieve by more regular reviews? Are there business or individual needs that your managers are not identifying in a timely fashion? Or is this a cosmetic exercise to try and make people feel more valued?
Either is OK but the advantage of the timing rather depends on what you're hoping to achieve.
For me a performance review is not an "event", but a continuous process, the overall plan and review can be revisited at any time that it is appropriate, but how often that process is formalised is irrelevant to that.
Jeanne, I can not imagine that quarterly reviews would be any more effective than annual ones. It could also add to the angst that is normal during review time. Actually, managers' ideally will be providing feedback to direct reports continually, and the annual performance review is the culmination of that ongoing process. Exception would be a four to six month review for a new employee -- just to be sure they are understanding the needs of the organization, whether they are on task, and whether the company is meeting their expectations as well. My preference is for a formalized process that is carefully designed and monitored so that both parties are served well.
Hi Jeanne,
At my old company, my boss initiated quarterly reviews and it failed miserably......it was too frequent for managers to keep up with.
Mark
In my previous hire - a Government Company I used to do it 3 (?) times. One in the beginning of the year - to set targets, one mid-year review and guidance for the second half and then the year end review.
Jeanne,
I, too, am curious about the impetus for this considered change. If it is an attempt to get the managers to give more feedback to their employees, I think it will fail miserably; I'd invest their time in some management training on the personal and legal reasons to give ongoing feedback (and, most importantly, how to do it). Another idea is to get manager/employee feedback about how things are now.
Michael has hit the nail on the head for this question. I believe though that managers should be aware of their business performance continuously so that if a member of the team starts to fail they can be given the support they need to recover the situation or if it looks like this is not achievable then difficult decisions can be made earlier. On the flip side if team members are exceeding expectations then this should be recognised as soon as possible.
Where managers are pro-active then annual reviews work fine as long as they are kept simple and straightforward. As a manager I am a firm believer in my team creating and updating their own Personal Development Plans and having frequent 1-2-1's to review their progress and also to see if I could be doing more to assist. I hold these monthly and they are usually around 15 minutes in duration with no formal structure so if a member of the team wants to discuss other issues that's fine. At the end of the day my goal is to understand what's happening in my business so all input is welcome.
Having the right tools available to record progress is key as it needs to fit in with the corporate culture. In technology companies a private blog could be used where this may not be so appropriate in manufacturing areas. Whichever tool selected though it must be really simple and straightforward. I have had experience where a performance tool has been deployed across 4000 users which actually took each user around two days every six months to populate and the managers spent around two weeks on the process. That's 16,000 days of lost productivity within an organisation and a month out of a managers time to run the business. Whether the gains made by deploying this tool were worth the loss of productivity is a matter of debate.
I echo the other respondents comments that it is important to create a performance development culture and it needs to be simple, straightforward and above all be bought into by all employees from CEO to Apprentices.
I agree with some that has been said above. I see the formal meetings as a moment for the employee to speak up, even more so than for a manager to feedback on performance. A manager should feedback continously and therefore performance meetings should not be used to tell an employee anything they haven't heard before, they should just confirm what has been discussed previously. In that context, I don't see any need for quarterly meetings. We do 2 meetings per year. One annual review in which last year is reviewed and objetives are set for the coming year and one half year review to touch down on progress.
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