18 Mistakes To Avoid When Designing a Performance Review Process — Part Two of Three

Use Performance Reviews to inspire and motivate your team

This is Part Two of a Three Part series on what makes a poor Performance Review process — You can read part one here and part three here.

Leaders don’t set out to create a poor Performance Review process, but sometimes it happens.

Team members and managers alike become demotivated when a much-touted Performance Review system doesn’t make sense or is unfair.

Consider how it will affect leaders and team members if you are setting up a Performance Review process.

The areas that could derail your Performance Review process covered in Part One are:

• Process and time frames are too rushed
• Lack of clarity around who has to do reviews
• Leadership access to reviews is inappropriate
• No user updates on changes to the process
• Lack of training
• Goal-setting reviews launched before the organizational strategy is finalized

Here are six more ways a poorly designed Performance Review process can disengage leaders and team members:

Seven — BAU not included

One of the most irritating things about Performance Reviews is that every couple of years, some bright spark decides that reviews should only feature project work.

It doesn’t make sense because some people need work that includes project work, managers have to find imaginary projects for team members, and some aren’t interested in project work.

Action point: Ensure that Performance Reviews reflect employees’ work, not just projects.

Eight — Rigid Goals

The goals set at the beginning of the year will likely differ from those awarded ratings at the end of the year.

Goals can:

• Disappear
• Appear
• Change

Your team members’ mid-year and end-of-year reviews need to reflect this to remain fair.

I’ve seen instances where team members have been awarded zero for a goal because senior leaders canceled the corresponding project.

This makes no sense, and when someone, whether the CEO or Head Office, insists that goals don’t change, the legitimacy of the whole Performance Review process comes under scrutiny.

Action point: Ensure employees are not graded unfairly because of changing goals throughout the year. Ensure that leaders know how to amend goals and weightings and have someone available to help if they get stuck.

Nine — A set number of goals

Hopefully, this type of madness no longer exists, but I’ve seen instances of Performance Review systems that dictate everyone in the organization has the same number of goals.

This makes no sense. Some people may have six smaller goals, and others two huge goals. It depends on the individual’s work.

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Split large goals into sections for clarity and to help team members understand which parts of the project are more important. Insisting everyone has the same number of goals encourages leaders to ‘fudge’ to fit the process.

Action point: Have a flexible approach to each team member’s allocated goals. Include this in the training and ensure leaders know what to include and how to break down larger goals.

Ten — No discussions around training and development

If you want your team members to embrace Performance Reviews, you must include Training & Development.

Why?

It needs to include something for team members other than clarity around their workload for the next year.

Many team members will wait for review time to broach the topic of their training needs.

If leaders take time to discuss training needs with their teams and create a development plan for each team member, it shows that the organization is invested in the success of its employees.

Action point: Ensure your Performance Review process includes training and development and that your leaders know how to create individual development plans.

Eleven — No discussions around career development

Similarly to training and development, many employees save up their career development conversations for their Performance Review meetings.

Asking about career aspirations in the Performance Review means that you know who is ambitious and wants a promotion and who doesn’t.

Leaders can inquire about their team members’ desired career direction and help them create a training plan that includes those aspirations.

If a team member’s career plan means they may leave the organization, then leaders have a heads up of when that might be and plan ahead.

Action point: Include discussions around career aspirations and ensure that team members are not penalized for being ambitious or wanting to stay where they are. There are ways to keep both types of team members engaged.

Twelve — No explanation of what included values look like

Organizations often make a big fuss about values, but in many cases, the values have little effect on the daily lives of the employees.

The employees must know the values and articulate how they translate to everyday working life.

If you include values in Performance Reviews and if these values affect the final grade of the employees, you must clarify how the values translate to behavior.

For example, if the value is teamwork, clarify how someone demonstrating teamwork will behave and what they say and how. Examples of the behavior, speech, and manner of someone not demonstrating teamwork are helpful, too.

Clearly defining values-based behavior will give team members a clearer idea of what to do.

Action point: Ensure all employees know the organizational values and how they translate into everyday behavior.

Summary

Performance Reviews are stressful for employees and leaders alike, so ensure your process is as fair as possible.

When designing the process, involve users at all levels and ask them to do a sense check. The more perspectives you get, the more robust your eventual process will be.

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