Conduct Appraisals That Actually Improve Performance

02/27/07

Of the 1,000+ employees Gene C. Mage surveyed recently, only half believe that annual reviews actually improve their job performance. Worse, a significant portion think reviews have a negative impact.

Mage, a business columnist (www.makingitwork.com) and the author of Managing for High Performance, says that these statistics “suggest a fundamental problem with the way performance reviews are conducted today.”

Supervisors handling reviews poorly miss opportunities to improve performance and productivity, which is bad enough. But subjective, insensitive reviews do real damage by demoralizing and de-motivating employees. And because poor appraisals and poor documentation go hand in hand, they can be downright dangerous. Says Mage: “Sloppy, inaccurate, or incomplete documentation can come back to bite an organization if it ends up in litigation.”

Do It Right
Appraisals done well, on the other hand, offer many benefits:

Employees become more valuable as they embrace opportunities to learn, grow, and improve.

Employees perform better when they get a true picture of how they are doing from a supervisor who cares.

The formal documentation that accompanies a good review reduces the risk of a lawsuit in the event an employee requires discipline.

Mage offers this six-point method for conducting effective appraisals:

1. Prepare well. Before the appraisal meeting, have employees do a self-appraisal that outlines their accomplishments, strengths, and weaknesses. Encourage them to be ready to discuss their career goals and dreams. Meanwhile, gather all the information necessary to deliver an objective assessment. These include things such as performance and disciplinary memos, notes on coaching sessions, and action plans from previous appraisals. Short on such documentation? Mage suggests having regular feedback sessions with employees throughout the year. “Document conversations as you go by keeping a conversation log. Share it openly with the employee.” That ensures there are no surprises in the appraisal meeting.

2. Create the right setting. Pick a private, neutral spot to hold the review. Choose a time when neither of you will be distracted, and when an employee has time to put your feedback to work immediately. Bad choice: Friday at 4:00.

3. Set the right tone. Your goal should be to help the employee improve. You’re on the road to failure if all you want to do is create a paper trail, fulfill company policy, or dump your frustrations on the person. “If employees sense you are in their corner,” says Mage, “they will be receptive to your feedback.”

4. Keep it balanced. As both Mage and famed management theorist Peter Drucker point out, you get the most out of people by capitalizing on their strengths. Praise strengths generously. If a weakness is getting in the way of a strength or skill, however, show the employee the impact of that behavior and ask him or her to commit to acting differently. Whatever you do, don’t drop a bomb on an unsuspecting employee. Declares Mage: “A manager that surprises an employee by storing dirty laundry and then dumping it out all at once demonstrates both negligence and a lack of integrity.”

5. Keep it specific. Mage: “The only feedback worth giving is feedback the performer can use to do better.” Focus on specific behaviors, not attitudes. Don’t criticize an employee’s pessimistic attitude, for instance. Instead, provide an example: “When you kept saying, ‘It won’t work,’ in the project development meeting last month, you dampened the team’s enthusiasm.”

6. Close with an action plan. As the conversation progresses, write down specific ideas for improvement. Summarize the list in the form of a learning plan and attach it to the appraisal form. Then set up regular meetings with the employee to discuss progress on the plan.

For the appraisal process to be successful, Mage believes,

You must be able to give and receive feedback without getting defensive or casting blame.

You need to listen well and see issues from the employee’s perspective.

You need to be diligent in monitoring and recording performance throughout the year.

You need to be able to pass along your observations effectively.

A tall order? You bet. But don’t forget that you are growing on the job as well, and you’ll improve in each skill with experience.

The Annual Review: Necessary But Not Important
In Mage’s surprising view, “Performance appraisals are not really that important. What matters most are the regular discussions in which supervisors and employees set clear expectations for performance and agree on the desired results.”

Far too many managers get it backwards: They focus on the annual review, then forget about managing performance the rest of the year. But as Mage concludes, “The regular dialogue is far more important than filling out the forms once a year.”

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