President & CEO, MTDG | Smart Manufacturing | IIoT | OT Cybersecurity | AI in Manufacturing Tech
It's important to be aware of why we do what we do, especially when it comes to the development of our employees. There has to be a clear outcome in delivering feedback, but that won't happen if leadership doesn't have an end-goal in mind. #ProfessionalDevelopment #EmployeeDevelopment #Workplace
If you’re in the thick of performance review season, or if you just wrapped up writing pages of evaluations and sitting through hours of calibration meetings, have you stopped to ask: Why? Why are we conducting a performance review? For most of my clients, their initial answer is, “because that’s what we do.” This season, some companies can’t offer raises or promotions because of the nature of the business climate. Yet they are carrying on with the rigamarole of the review process anyway. I ask again: Why? Leaders need to have clarity about why they bother with this often lengthy and complicated process. This intent matters because reviews set up to determine raises and promotions can and should look different than reviews set up to gain useful feedback that will help change behaviors and develop more impactful employees. Leaders should also be willing to iterate on this process. 📄 If reviews are a direct pipeline to compensation changes and you aren’t going to be offering raises, scrap them this year. Save everyone the trouble. 📄 If reviews are to provide feedback, what’s the purpose of the feedback? To let someone know if they are meeting expectations or not? To learn how they can be more impactful? To provide pathways for growth and career development? 📄 If reviews are to provide an assessment, what is it assessing—the company, team, or individual? Is it an assessment of goal alignment or growth trajectories? Often, leaders think their reviews do all.the.things, but that often means they don’t do a great job at any one of them. Consider this prime time to review your performance reviews and design, iterate, and evolve them to match the specific needs of your organization. And, if you’re starting from scratch, here’s my baseline recommendation for what reviews should accomplish: 📌 Identify your top performers and how to keep them engaged 📌 Identify your solid performers and how to develop them into top performers 📌 Identify your lowest performers and how to improve them or transition them out Just try not to spend too much time on lowest performers to the detriment of the rest of the team. Tell me: why do YOU do performance reviews?
