The Joy of Employee Reviews

It’s that time of year again! Pull out the pen and tell your employees what you think about them! It’s either “you’re doing great, and I’ve got to give you a raise” or “you’re terrible at your job, and we need to make a change,” But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are five reasons you should love giving reviews:

1. Sharing Your Values

Remember those timeless principles that so wonderfully exemplify what you believe is essential in life and business that you put on a poster, and now you never talk about them? Reviews are a great way to tell the story of your values, especially the core ones.

Use this one-on-one time to start a conversation about your core values and how your employee’s behavior stacks up against them; good, bad, or indifferent. Using core values as a measure of success also allows us to discuss the subjective objectively.

2. Learn Something New About Yourself

Let your employees review you as part of their review. You’re probably not a good leader if you can’t take it. If you’re open to being vulnerable, there’s a good chance you’ll learn something new about your company, your performance, and how you conduct business.

This is also an excellent time for introspection. Self-reflection is incredibly powerful for celebrating our achievements and identifying our flaws.

3. Get On The Same Page All The Time

Expectations of a role, a project, and a relationship change constantly, and communication around those expectations is typically reactive, unproductive, and sometimes non-existent. Start having “reviews” monthly or quarterly.

Regularly scheduled conversations about how your employees are doing and what they should be doing may seem novel until their performance, and your satisfaction with their output starts to skyrocket.

4. Preview Instead Of Review

Use the allotted time to address the past, but more importantly, preview the future.

Set personalized goals together and talk about how you can work as a team for the next period to achieve your shared vision of success.

5. Difficult Conversations Made Easier 

Have you created open lines of communication with your staff and identified all expectations of job performance?

Suppose you regularly talk about the values of the company. In that case, difficult conversations around performance will become few and far between or evident to all parties that the delivery is a foregone conclusion.

 

Author

  • Andy McCarthy

    Director of Organizational Design

    Mr. McCarthy is a certified talent optimization consultant who brings over 10 years of CEO and owner experience in scaling and exiting businesses. His focus on visioning, value development & tactical planning has propelled growth with hundreds of businesses in various industries including Consumer Packaged Goods, Marketing, Technology, Real Estate, Design, and Food & Beverage. Andy’s approach of challenging those around him & always improving complements The Building People’s mission of transforming the built environment at the intersection of real estate, technology, and people. His area of expertise will support our internal and client-facing solutions around workplace transformation, talent optimization, and the power of science and data.

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