As Spring approaches, you may find yourself in performance review time. Just coming out of the holidays then our busiest tax season, we forget about preparing and planning for performance reviews. Which leaves the Human Resource department rushing to get the forms prepared and communication drafted to be sent to managers. Scissortail HCM can simplify the process for your department and managers. Below are a few tips and strategies to make the process easier for everyone involved.
Communicate with managers to understand the why and how for effective performance review.
Performance reviews give the opportunity for employees and managers a place to have a conversation on how to improve performance. It also gives the space to commend an employee or manager for a job well done. Open communication creates a working environment that is positive for everyone. With performance reviews within Scissortail HCM, it creates a consistent and efficient process across your organization.
When performance reviews are executed correctly, they can connect and motivate employees to maximize their efforts. This can increase productivity, which can translate into a financial gain for the company overall. When done wrong, they can motivate employees to quietly quit or develop a disgruntled employee. The latter creates an unproductive work environment and can cost the company money.
What frequency fits your company and employees?
If your company is considering shifting from the more traditional annual review to a biannual or quarterly review, it allows for communication during check-in times. Often as managers, we get busy in the day-to-day operations and can miss when an employee is struggling. This can be eliminated with more frequent performance reviews or a simple monthly check-in. If your company has remote workers, an even more frequent check-in might be beneficial. Remote workers can feel less part of the team or company by not being in the office each workday. A weekly check-in may make more sense. It creates an opportunity for remote workers to connect with management to ensure they are on the right path.
We recommend quarterly or monthly performance conversations, paired with a year-end review of general items, notes, progress, and next steps. This allows managers and employees to stay on the same page about goals, progress, and performance. It also helps:
- Employees understand exactly where they stand and what to do to improve.
- Managers provide real-time coaching and help overcome challenges.
- Organizations benefit from a constant flow of data on individual and team performance.
Many organizations are turned off by a quarterly or monthly performance review timeframe because it feels like a substantial time commitment. But if you’re having frequent conversations, they don’t need to be long, robust, or comprehensive to be effective.
- Below are the top items to conduct a successful performance review:
- Performance reviews should be two-way conversations.
- Performance reviews should be future-focused.
- Performance reviews should be objective.
- Understand how Performance Reviews impact employee success.
- Gather employee data and examples specific to the employee you are reviewing.
- Be prepared with notes and how the review should be executed.
- Be an effective listener.
- End the conversation with agreed upon next steps.
- Have a plan to follow up after a performance review.
Keep the conversation going.
Performance conversations, not necessarily reviews should happen regularly. Simple conversations and check-ins help employees be more successful and feel part of the team. Before your performance review ends, go ahead, and put the next check-in on the calendar. You can even set a regular schedule for check-ins throughout the year. These meetings occur quarterly or monthly, setting a regular schedule shows you are invested in your employees’ continued growth and development.
Even if your organization hasn’t made the switch to more regular conversations, it can be helpful for managers to create an open-door policy if they have not done so already with employees so that they feel comfortable discussing their performance all year long. Scissortail HCM can automate this process for your organization. Pairing this policy with 1-on-1 meetings and check-in throughout an employee’s lifecycle is an effective and efficient way to move toward a continuous performance conversation program.
