Are Your Performance Reviews Up to the Mark? - Part 2
by Linnea Blair
In the first part of this article we discussed the importance of good organizational skills and planning ahead. Refresh your memory with Part I Here.
If you have never had a performance review process in place, you will want to discover at what level your team members are currently functioning. You may have employees who are filling a foreman role, for example, but may not really be operating with the competency set for a foreman according to your job description for that role. This situation may be caused by a number of reasons from weak job descriptions, job descriptions that are not fully used within the company, promotion of a person to a role prior to implementing formal job descriptions, or just plain expediency.
Your goal in this discovery will be to determine what you need to fulfill your Business Plan and may involve training or coaching for current employees to grow in their competencies or progress to a new role. You may also discover that you need to recruit for a specific role or move an employee to a role for which they are better suited.
When you conduct a performance review, the review itself should be set up to assess the level of competency based on the job description itself. This is where having a strong job description really pays off as it is simple and objective to rate the employee directly from the list of competencies inherent in the job description.
Each team member should perform their own self assessment. Supervisors and managers should also perform a review on their direct reports and depending on the size of the company, the business owner or senior management team may review all employees or meet with supervisors to discuss their review of lower level personnel.
Before you roll out a complete performance review system there are some things you need to consider for successful implementation.
- The business owner must be fully committed to the process.
- A capable “point person” should be chosen to spearhead the process. This does not need to be the owner, but should be someone who supports and understands the process, and has the necessary credibility within the company to take the lead.
- The performance management process and its benefits, should be communicated to the team, along with due dates for completion.
Implementing Performance Reviews
The timetable should include time for the self assessments and reviews to be completed. Since some managers will need to review multiple employees, make sure to have a realistic time frame for them to complete the reviews in addition to performing their regular responsibilities.
Once the written assessments are completed by employees and managers, individual meetings should be set up with each employee and either their supervisor or a business owner (or both). The goals of this part of the review process are to communicate with the team member about how he or she is performing in the current role, deciding together on action steps to either improve in areas that are weak, or to determine what steps the employee can take to progress to a role of greater responsibility within the company. The resulting personal plan will become a method of objectively measuring future progress during the ensuing period of performance monitoring.
The timing of performance reviews can come at the end of a fiscal cycle or at the end of a seasonal cycle. Typically you would not want to conduct performance reviews at the height of your busiest season, though that may be a good time for more informal project reviews. You also may want to structure your performance reviews to occur prior to the time you would normally give out raises so that you can tie your decisions about what raises and promotions to give based upon objective merit.
Ongoing Performance Management
Monitoring performance on an ongoing basis through follow up coaching sessions or meetings make the difference for many companies in the successful implementation and progress of team members towards their personal action plan goals. Some company meetings (as outlined in my previous article found in the Third Quarter Issue of this Magazine) may be a good venue for reviewing project performance. Supervisors may also set up individual meetings on a quarterly if not monthly basis to check in on team members’ progress towards their personal plan and determine new action steps if necessary.
Dealing with poor performance is different than coaching employees who are, for the most part, on the right track. When you have poor performers in the company, it is critical to the business as well as to the individual employee and the team that the situation is dealt with effectively and quickly. This topic is an article unto itself and will be addressed in a future issue.
Business Owner Commitment
As mentioned earlier, the success of a performance review process rests largely with the business owner. Your commitment of your own and your employees time to the review process together with a demonstration of positive and constructive communication to your team is critical if you want to develop a culture that emphasizes achievement and dedication to high performance and teamwork.
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