How to Adjust Goal Weightings in Performance Reviews When Goals Have Changed

Be fair to your team, adjust performance review weightings to accommodate any changes

One of the trickier aspects of doing a performance review for your team members is that nothing stays the same.

It’s doubtful that the goals you agreed on in January are still valid at the end of the year.

Also, some goals increase or decrease in importance throughout the year.

How do you deal with performance review goals that have changed?

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Leaving the goals and weightings as they stand won’t do, as that isn’t fair to the employee. If the goals change, the weightings may do as well.

First, though, let’s clarify what weighting is.

What is a goal weighting anyway?

Goal weighting is a measure of how important the goal is.

Weightings can be percentages or numbers.

For example, one goal has a weighting of 40% and another 10%. Clearly, the goal weighted at 10% is less time-consuming, less complex, and has less impact on the business.

If you use percentages, all the weightings must add up to a hundred.

Yes, this sounds obvious, but I’ve managed performance appraisals for decades, and many people have asked me why the percentages must add up to a hundred (I put it down to performance review stress).

When using numbers, weightings could be from one to five, with a low-importance goal allocated a weighting of one and a high-importance goal allocated a five.

Either way, weightings are used together with ratings to work out a final performance appraisal score for your team. This final score could impact their opportunities to attend training, promotion success, and engagement.

If you’ve ever wondered where all that high-school maths comes in handy, it’s now! When you are battling with ratings and weightings in a performance review process.

Quick reminder…

Weighting: How important each goal is

Rating: How your team member did at the goal

Example: When Goals and Weightings Change

Let’s work through an example. I’ll use the percentage ratings example as that is the hardest to balance — Changing number weightings is much easier as you just change the number.

At the beginning of the year, your team member’s goals and weightings looked like this:

Goal one — Complete induction training and become competent at the role as per the training logbook by March 31st — Weighting 10%

Goal Two — Create a monthly report for the senior team about customer retention with the format of the report being formalized by June 30th — Weighting 20%

Goal Three — Answer all customer queries within 24 hours using the Customer Service software — Weighting 40%

Goal Four — Run four face-to-face customer forums per month to identify the most and least valuable features of a new product — Weighting 30%

Summary of initial weightings:

• Goal One: 10%
• Goal Two: 20%
• Goal Three: 40%
• Goal Four: 30%

And it’s always a relief when it adds up to 100!

Let’s look at how each goal might change:

Goal one — Complete induction training and become competent at the role as per the training logbook by March 31st — Weighting 10%

The newcomer might need more time to complete the training but does so within a reasonable time frame, for example, by the end of April.

The goal has stayed the same, so the weighting remains the same.

Goal Two — Create a monthly report for the senior team about customer retention with the format of the report being formalized by June 30th — Weighting 20%

In this case, let’s assume that when presented with a draft report for approval, the senior team decided they did not want it after all.

In this case, I’d reduce the weighting to 5% and rate the employee on the work they did. That way, your team member still gets some credit for their work, but only part of the 20%, as the goal was removed and the work involved has decreased substantially.

Picking a lower weighting involves a bit of guesswork, but use common sense, and it shouldn’t be too hard.

Goal Three — Answer all customer queries within 24 hours using the Customer Service software — Weighting 40%

Let’s assume this goal has no change, and the weighting remains the same.

Goal Four — Run four face-to-face customer forums per month to identify the most and least useful features of a new product — Weighting 30%

In this case, there were several changes to the customer forums:

• Due to the pandemic, the forums could no longer be face-to-face after the first three months
• The number of forums each month increased to six
• The duration of the forums increased to include a broader range of questions

Here, the weighting of the goal needs to be increased as the forums have increased in duration, are more numerous, and are more wide-ranging. Increase the weighting by 10% as we have a reduction of 15% from Goal One to play with.

Goal Five — A new goal has been added — Monitor and respond to a newly introduced customer service app

As this is a new goal, there was no weighting allocated initially. I’d take the 5% remaining from Goal Two and reduce Goal Three by 10% as it is a similar goal in that it responds to Customer Queries.

This would mean Goal Five has a 15% weighting.

Where are we now?

At the beginning of the year, the weightings were:

• Goal One: 10%
• Goal Two: 20%
• Goal Three: 40%
• Goal Four: 30%

At the end of the year the weightings are:

• Goal One: 10% — The goal stayed the same, so weighting stayed the same at 10%
• Goal Two: 5% — The goal became redundant, so weighting was reduced from 20% to 5% to account for work completed
• Goal Three: 30% — A similar goal was introduced (Goal 5), so 10% was taken from Goal Three’s original 40% weighting
• Goal Four: 40% — The goal increased in complexity, so 10% added to weighting
• Goal Five: 15% — New goal introduced, so awarded a 15% weighting

You are doing well if your new weightings add up to 100 on the first go! I’ve checked this three times to ensure I’m right. It’s confusing, but persevere to ensure a fair performance review.

Use common sense

When you adjust goal weightings, ensure you are fair and use common sense.

The above was just an example, so the goals could have been more SMART, and my solutions may make a customer service expert scratch their head in confusion.

However, the main point stands. If goals change, adjust the weightings to reflect your team member’s work.

That way, you can give a performance appraisal that accurately reflects your team member’s achievement, is fair, and makes sense.

Summary

Your team member deserves to get credit for the work they did over the year.

If a goal is eliminated — reduce the weighting to cover what work your team member completed before the goal disappeared.

If a goal is expanded — increase the weighting to account for the extra time, complexity, and impact on the business.

If a goal is added — tweak the weighting to fit a new rating in.

And remember to use common sense.

And when your percentages don’t add up to 100, don’t panic. It’s happened to everyone. Including me when I’m helping leaders work it all out.

Just go and have a cup of tea and try again later :-)

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