When conducting a formal employee evaluation, who should first complete the performance review?

A few years back, I stepped into a management position where, for the first time, I was responsible for supervising a team of six. With my MBA in hand and thorough analysis of my Myers-Briggs type, I thought it would be a breeze to manage and motivate the people I worked with.

But, while those tools did prove helpful, they didn’t totally prepare me for one of the hardest parts of being a manager: giving annual performance reviews. Turns out, managers dread them as much as employees do! Yet, despite our natural aversion, reviews are an inevitable (and important) part of the job, and a critical part of your team’s growth. So, if you’re aiming to be a superstar manager, it’s time to become as good at reviews as you possibly can.

In that spirit, here’s how to get started.

The Basics

You might be tempted to throw together your top-of-mind feedback for your employees the week before a review, but you probably already know you shouldn’t. You should treat the process as a year-long activity and put thought into it well ahead of time. Planning will help you deliver more comprehensive feedback and, when review season rolls around, there will be no surprises for you or your employees—and that’s what you should be striving for.

Start by identifying the best time of year to conduct your reviews. Find out whether your organization has a preferred schedule or process (most large companies do) and consider when your budgeting process takes place or when you have the option to hand out bonuses. If you have flexibility, you want to avoid high-volume work seasons, because the preparation and feedback process can be demanding and intense, and no one wants to do reviews during busy season.

Next, build out your yearly timeline accordingly, and communicate the timing to your employees. Nothing about a review—from the content to the timing—should ever come as a surprise.

Now, for the sake of ease, let’s say your review season will be at the end of the year, in December. Here’s what your annual schedule should look like:

January (Start of Year)

Set Goals & Expectations

At the beginning of the year, have a meeting with your employees to share your annual goals and expectations for the team. Then, meet with them individually to set their own performance goals. This not only ensures that everyone is clear on their expectations for the year, it also gives you both a clear outline to follow each time you discuss performance over the coming months.

The best way to set goals is to use the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-oriented, Time-bound) framework. (Need a primer? Get briefed on the basics here.) And remember that while goals should be specific to each person’s role, they should also be clearly aligned with the organizational goals so that employees can see how their performance affects the whole team.

After the meetings, type up the company’s goals and each employee’s goals, and put them in an email. Your employees will appreciate knowing they’re working from the same copy you are and they’ll have a clear roadmap to follow throughout the year.

March, June, and September (Every 3 Months or Monthly)

Hold Touch-Base Meetings

Managers often panic about summarizing and commenting on people’s performance during reviews, but the truth is, nothing you cover in that annual meeting should be new information. Rather, you should be tracking your employees’ goals and giving them feedback all throughout the year. Whether you’d prefer to have monthly or quarterly check-ins, pre-schedule these meetings at the beginning of the year so that they don’t get pushed to the back burner.

Before each meeting, prepare a brief agenda. You should review the employee’s annual goals, discuss the expectations you’ve outlined, and address any questions or additional assignments you have. If there are quarterly metrics or long-term project updates to review, now’s the time to do so.

You’ll also want to spend time giving each person informal feedback on his or her performance, including offering praise where due and addressing any ongoing or potential issues. (Yes, this is the tough part.) One thing I’ve found helpful is to frame comments in terms of behaviors someone should start, stop, or continue: Perhaps you’d like an employee to start cc’ing you on emails to other managers, stop taking long lunch breaks, or continue to turn in projects ahead of the deadline. Make this a conversation, too, and ask each employee to share his or her own thoughts and questions.

After each of these meetings, make notes for yourself about what you discussed. Trust me—when the end of the year rolls around, you’ll be glad to have these notes to help you summarize the year and remember what you’d discussed with people in the first couple quarters.

October/November (Two Months Before Review)

Ask Your Employees to Prep

A couple of months before the actual reviews, schedule dates for official meetings with each team member. At this point, you should also ask them to begin pulling together a compilation of their annual results. Start with any official forms your company wants you to use, or create your own, asking each employee to craft a summary of his or her key job responsibilities, current project work, and a recap of goals and achievements.

It can also be helpful to have each employee complete a written self-evaluation. This not only helps employees feel like they have a say in the process, but it challenges them to take an honest look at their own work behavior, which is helpful when talking about their performance. The best self-evaluations include 6-10 open-ended questions, such as: What accomplishments are you most proud of this year? Where have you fallen short of the expectations and goals of the team or yourself? What are your areas for growth and how are you addressing them? Are there things your manager can do to further support your progress and success?

November (Six Weeks Before Review)

Prep Yourself as a Manager

In the meantime, you should spend the months before reviews compiling your own notes and results for each employee. Begin to gather both quantitative measures of employee performance, like sales reports, call records, and deadline reports, as well as qualitative measures, which could include feedback from clients and customers or your personal observation. Pull out those notes you took during the year in your touch-base meetings, too.

One common tool is the 360-degree review, which is based on an employee self-assessment and peer reviews, as well as superior and subordinate feedback. You can find a very simple version at HowsMyWork.com or a more extensive version at Inc.com. Don’t hesitate to adapt these templates to meet your own needs.

As you’re reviewing the results, ask yourself the following: Is this person meeting his or her goals, your expectations, and the company’s success indicators? If not, why—and can you change this? If yes—are there rewards, acknowledgements, or larger projects that you can assign to reinforce your star performers? This is where bonuses come in!

December (1 Month Before Review)

Prepare Your Documentation

Once you’ve done all of your research, it’s time to compile each employee’s self-assessment, all external feedback, and any relevant data—use this information to prepare evaluation forms, written letters explaining your feedback, and talking points for your face-to-face discussion.

First, figure out the format or structure you want to use. You have some flexibility here, but choose a structure that both feels comprehensive and will help your employee follow along. You could, for example, structure the review around the goals you set together, talking through them one at a time, or around the employee’s major projects, going project-by-project and discussing relevant goals as you go.

Then, no matter what format you decide on, you’ll want to identify both areas for affirmation and encouragement as well as any areas of concern (or, areas in which an employee can continue to grow). For each category, pick 2-3 major areas to focus on, so that your conversation will feel substantive, yet focused. Develop talking points that are supported by the data you’ve collected, then, for each point, include a summary of your future expectations and the action items related to this goal. (Employees—especially well-performing employees—hate coming out of a review feeling like they got nothing out of it, or like they’re not sure what to do next. So even in the areas where someone is doing well, you should think about next steps and future or “stretch” goals.)

With all of these resources in hand, you’ll be ready to have a meaningful conversation with each member of your team.

End of December

Hold the In-Person Review Meeting

Now, it’s time to sit down with your employees for the official review. This is the most challenging part of the process, but it’s also the most important. So, stay tuned for the next part of our series, where you’ll learn how to conduct a review—including insight about dealing with different personality types and effectively soliciting feedback.

Published January 19, 2021 (last updated June 7, 2022) Erin Gaffney - F2F Manager, ANZ

Employee performance reviews can be useful in improving your company’s performance. If done right, employees and supervisors or managers are able to share expectations and collaborate to achieve results. This can lead to increased employee engagement, reduced levels of employee dissatisfaction, performance improvement, increased motivation and morale.  

What Is a Performance Appraisal?

A performance appraisal is an evaluation of an employee’s job performance and contribution to the company. The performance appraisal process evaluates an employee’s achievements, skills, and growth or lack thereof in terms of company and employee goals and objectives. Performance appraisals are primarily used by supervisors and managers to provide feedback to each employee regarding their performance and serve as a basis for changing behaviour towards more effective working habits.

Steps to Conducting a Performance Appraisal 

Conducting employee performance appraisals can seem like a straightforward process, but sometimes even the most experienced and competent HR practitioners, managers, and supervisors may struggle to conduct effective performance review processes. Here are a few tips that may assist in the delivery of effective employee performance appraisals and review processes.

1. Preparation

Adequate preparation assists in the likelihood of the processes succeeding.  Establish a purpose for the appraisal meeting beforehand. You can start by reviewing the notes from the employee’s previous appraisals and evaluate some of their more recent work to determine any patterns in the challenges they face. Prepare a list of points to discuss with the employee in the meeting and include potential solutions.

Employee performance appraisals are two-way discussions. You may wish to create a joint agenda for the performance review meeting to guide the direction of the meeting and ensure you cover everything you intend to, highlighting both the employee’s struggles and successes.

You may wish to give the employee time to prepare for the appraisal meeting beforehand. Communicate your meeting agenda and invite your employee to share their views and perhaps conduct a self-evaluation of their performance in preparation. Consider setting out the performance review process, their role in the evaluation process and what you’re looking for from them, and exactly how you’ll evaluate their performance against company objectives  

2. Documentation

Properly documenting what was discussed during a performance review may be useful for procedural and practical reasons. One way to do this is to use performance appraisal forms. They are an excellent way to assist with goal setting and tracking individual tasks and offer scope for employee self-evaluation; they should therefore form the basis of the performance appraisal meeting to help conduct objective and accurate evaluations of your employees.

You may document your employee’s performance throughout the review period, such as missed deadlines or completed projects. You can also keep track of these developments through a performance appraisal form and ask your employee to do the same. This will allow you to have a comprehensive look at your employee’s performance.

Employsure can assist you understand what documentation may be required.  Call us for free initial advice on 1300 651 415

3. Feedback

Feedback from clients, as well as colleagues who’ve worked with the employee from their coworkers, boss, and any reporting staff can broaden the performance information to deliver to the employee. Consider using a structured format to make it easy to share the feedback with subordinates. Provide the employee with the feedback you’ve gathered before the meeting to allow them to digest the contents before discussing it with you at the appraisal meeting. 

4. Evaluation 

Evaluate employees based on goals and expectations that have been clearly set out and documented at the start of the review period or even at the start of their employment. Evaluating an employee’s performance against objectives or targets they were unaware of will make them feel blindsided. Also, keep in mind that the performance review meeting is a two-way discussion, and your employee should have input as well. Your employees are more likely to open up and be honest when they feel listened to, and have a relationship of trust with their supervisor or manager. So let the employee speak first, then respond with constructive input. After every discussion point, summarise the conversation and check the consensus with regards to goal setting and understanding of future expectations. 

While it’s easy to dwell on the negatives and what the employee should’ve done, try to focus on the positives. Discuss the employee’s successes and what worked, and how they can continue to grow. But this doesn’t mean you should sugarcoat negative reviews; instead, discuss practical ways they can improve. These critiques are meant to aid the employee, so be honest and work with them to find a way forward. Offer coaching on how an employee can improve on their weaknesses, and reward success and offer the employee development opportunities that correspond with their personal goals to keep them motivated.

5. Action Plan 

Research has shown that only 55% of employees believe performance appraisals are effective. To ensure your appraisals are effective, both the manager and the employee should come away from the performance review with a positive mindset and an action plan. Setting an action plan to help employees improve their skills should be a collaborative effort. Work with your employee to develop an action plan on what the employee can do to achieve their objectives and contribute towards the company’s goals. Employees that understand how their role fits in to the overall operation of the business can work more effectively.

 You should consider the employee’s personal objectives and development opportunities and incorporate them into the action plan. Conclude the performance appraisal meeting by summarising what has been discussed, how and when the action plan will be implemented, and who is responsible for which tasks going forward. Monitor the employee’s progress, provide regular feedback and review the plan regularly to make sure it is still current. 

Evaluate Performance and Do It Regularly

A study by Adobe found that 80% of employees prefer immediate feedback to annual reviews, saying it’s more beneficial to them and contributes positively to their performance. Consider having weekly, monthly, or quarterly review sessions. Regular reviews can help reduce some of the pressure that results from a yearly employee evaluation and provide a more pro-active approach to managing performance issues before they escalate. Weekly reviews can be informal to establish an open relationship between employee and their manager or supervisor. They should focus on the potential and development of the employee and incorporate practical steps for achieving employee and company objectives.

If you incorporate these tips into your performance appraisal process, you may be able to  develop a more streamlined and effective review process. Performance reviews can significantly improve employee-manager communication and enhance your relationship with employees, as well as improve your organization’s overall performance.

Call our team to receive free initial advice on any workplace relations topic.

Employsure is one of Australia’s largest workplace relations advisers to small- and medium-businesses, with over 20,000 clients. We take the complexity out of workplace legislation to help small business employers protect their business and their people.

• Performance appraisals or reviews are primarily used to provide feedback to each employee regarding their performance, for goal setting and to serve as a basis for encouraging employees to adopt more effective working habits.

• The major criteria used to assess the performance of employees should be objective and measurable and can include meeting KPI’s and company objectives, ideally listed on the performance appraisal form.  Employee behaviours, for example a lack of communication skills or initiative, should be discussed dispassionately by providing concrete examples of how the business has been affected, exploring reasons for the behaviours with the employee, and offering coaching or solutions, or at least practical, actionable steps for improvement.

• It is up to the employer to determine how often they wish to assess their employees. However, regular informal reviews (daily and weekly) and continuous ongoing feedback are generally the most effective ways of keeping employees on track and addressing issues before they escalate. Employsure recommends quarterly formal performance appraisals of your employees.

• Conducting reviews regularly can help maintain performance standards and also allow both the manager or supervisor more opportunities to intervene or address any concerns before matters escalate. Regular constructive feedback helps build trust between the manager or supervisor and the employee.

• Key Performance Indicators or KPIs can be anything relevant to the role. They can include:

  • Meeting deadlines
  • Number of sales made
  • Average call length
  • A performance increase on last quarter’s/year’s performance
  • Number of clicks generated

• Topics to discuss in a performance review include:

  • A retrospective on the time since the last review
  • What was discussed in the last review
  • Company goals and expectations
  • Employee strengths and success
  • Reward and recognition
  • Areas of concern and room for improvement
  • An action plan containing practical solutions and guidance to address concerns or improve (short-term)
  • Employee development skills and training (long-term)
  • Any concerns or issues the employee may have
  • Other feedback that may be relevant from managers or supervisors, or even clients and colleagues

• This question is asked by many employers, and the answer isn’t clear cut. However, there are a few managerial actions you can take to maintain employee motivation and productivity, including regular reviews, ensuring your employee is engaged, challenged and rewarded for their efforts, and has opportunities for personal development, and that you also show leadership as a manager by setting a positive example.

• Handling staff with a negative attitude can be a very hard and complex process which requires a long answer. In short, however, you should first discuss the issue with your employee in a fair and reasonable manner; their negative attitude may be due to personal issues. If you’d like further information on this process, please call Employsure on 1300 207 182 for free, initial advice.

Contact us to find out how BrightHR people management software can help you manage and store your essential employee records and documents.

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