18 Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Performance Review Process — Part One of Three
Performance Review Processes Must be User Friendly
This article is part one of a three part series. You can read part two here and part three here.
Employers don’t set out to de-motivate their employees with a Performance Review Process that doesn’t make sense.
Why would they?
But sadly, I’ve seen many Performance Review Processes that cause employees to disengage.
My first experience of a performance review is a perfect example of how to do more harm than good. In my early twenties, I was a management trainee working for a large retail chain in the UK.
I knew that performance reviews were coming up and there would be a meeting with the store manager, but I didn’t know what would happen. The meeting was a disaster, a catalog of what I’d done wrong, and I came out of the meeting blinking back tears.
I didn’t know the purpose or structure of the review, who would be there, the structure of the meeting, or that I would get a grade. My humiliation was public knowledge, which was also bad practice.
My traumatic experience could have been a result of poor management, but it could also have been a result of a poorly designed performance review process.
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If you are implementing or updating a Performance Review process for your organization, consider how your team members will view it and whether the process will enhance their work experience.
If it doesn’t, you compromise the organization’s productivity by de-motivating your team members.
Designing a Performance Review Process can involve many mistakes, so I’ve divided the list into three parts.
Here are the first six mistakes to avoid:
One — A Performance Review process that is too rushed
It is unrealistic to expect a leader with four or five direct reports to complete their Performance Reviews in a couple of weeks.
Allow for training days, public holidays, leave, sickness, urgent work, and priority meetings; there is little time left over.
A month is a more realistic time to prepare reviews and meet with the team.
Action point: Do a reality check about how many direct reports some leaders have and how long they need to finalize all the preparation, review meetings, and final agreement on goals, etc. If in doubt, ask your leaders. Then, choose a doable time frame.
Two — Being unclear about who has to complete a Performance Review
Temps, contractors, people who’ve just joined the organization and people who have resigned are all part of the mix when leaders are planning performance reviews.
Decide who will do Performance Reviews, document it into the process, and stick to it.
Temps — Don’t need a review as they work for the agency that provides them.
Contractors — Base whether contractors will have a review on the length of the contract. If it’s over three months, get the contractor to do a review. If three months is making you nervous, make it six months, but do make a decision and stick to it.
People who have just joined — Give newbies a review that includes completing their induction, becoming competent, and achieving the basic KPIs of the role. This gets your newbie used to reviews, SMART goals, and reporting on their progress in one-on-ones.
Action point: Consider the types of temps and contractors your organization hires or may hire, make a decision, and document it so you stay consistent.
Three — Too much or too little management access
One question I was often asked was, ‘Who will see my performance appraisal?’ Whether it was a paper form, an online form, or a fancy Performance Review system, people wanted to know who had access to it.
When designing a Performance Review process, carefully consider who will see the reviews. I’ve seen instances where every manager could see the performance reviews of all employees below manager level, which is not ideal.
Employees are okay with their manager and management in the upward reporting line seeing their reviews but don’t want every manager in the organization to have access.
I’ve also experienced a senior leader or CEO being unable to access a review. The Head Office, who ran the review process for Australasia, refused him access. Denying a CEO access to an employee’s review doesn’t make sense. The CEO needs access to every review, and other senior leaders need access to all their team members.
When designing a performance review system, ensure that the appropriate people have access to each review.
Ensure that you appoint an administrator to manage the Performance Review system. Employees join, leave, get promotions, and switch departments, and if you have an online system, it should reflect this.
If senior leaders can’t get access to the reviews they need or reviews are too public, team members will lose confidence in the system.
Action point: Include access requirements in your Performance Review process and ensure they make sense.
Four — No process to advise users when the system changes
I once trained a new manager on the Performance Review process. It was the standard training about Performance Reviews plus screenshots of the online system.
Once we finished the theory, we went to his desk to check that he could log on and navigate the system.
We logged on, his password worked, and he entered the system. Woohoo! Step one is complete. But to my astonishment, it looked nothing like the system I’d trained him on five minutes ago.
Our Australasian Head Office had run a system upgrade without letting anyone know.
Action point: If you are going to set up a Performance Review system, have a process for telling everyone who manages it when it changes. Even better, ask the users for input when the system is due for an upgrade.
Five — Managers and employees not trained properly
Most leaders and team members only consider Performance Reviews twice a year, or three times if you are lucky.
These times are:
- The Goal Setting Review
- The Mid-Year Review
- The End of Year Review
Understandably, employees do forget the process, the purpose, and how all the tech works if your system is online.
It is necessary to provide training for both leaders and team members, preferably live training on Zoom or face-to-face training, as well as online training.
Leaders and managers must be trained properly or have access to FAQs, or they will struggle at review time.
Action points:
- Create or review your Performance Review training to ensure it’s fit for purpose.
- Include general information on reviews, why the organization has them, SMART goal setting, a section on planning individual training, and the Performance Review life cycle.
- Create FAQ sheets for leaders and team members and distribute them around review time.
Six — No organizational strategy or goals
The premise of Performance Reviews is that the goals of the individual feed down from the goals of the team, which in turn come from the organization’s goals.
If there are no goals or strategy for the year ahead at the start of review season (Goal Setting Review), this leaves leaders in a difficult position.
I’ve had plenty of managers complain that they can’t set goals for their team if they don’t know their own goals.
If this occurs, ensure that leaders know to do as best they can by setting goals and KPIs for work that they know will take place. After all, they and their teams won’t sit idle at their desks because there is no current strategy.
Action point: Ensure Goal-Setting Reviews start after the organizational strategy is agreed upon. This may mean your Performance Reviews don’t run from January to December. If Performance Reviews are linked directly to pay increases, take that into account when you decide on the review schedule.
Final thoughts
Designing a Performance Review process can be challenging. Consider why you hold Performance Reviews, what you want to achieve, and what could de-rail the process.
Then, take steps to mitigate anything that will make your Performance Review Process problematic.
This article is Part One of the series; look out for Parts Two and Three.
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