Performance Reviews serve two main purposes: at a company level it is a regular, usually annual, opportunity for high level data collection of overall performance and that can help to guide future training and development. For colleagues it is an opportunity to check-in; to share their goals, achievements and concerns – knowing it could help with their career development. Well that’s the optimistic idea.

In reality it can be a stressful period for all. Where managers are afraid to critique where needed, don’t know all the follow-up steps available, and worry about answering tricky questions. Whilst employees worry they aren’t going to be listened to, or that they might even risk losing their job for speaking up. Ideally, this wouldn’t be the case, so what can be done to mitigate all this stress?

How do you change the perception of Reviews from stressful to helpful?

Preparation

Putting the effort in before starting a Review period is necessary; to know what everyone’s roles are, what is expected and what questions to ask. Time spent preparing is not wasted if it structures what comes next and makes the outcomes more valuable. 

All of the following things are important to communicate clearly before carrying out a successful set of Reviews:

Exact dates for each stage of Reviews, so each party knows when to do their bit

• a clear start date 

• a date to complete the self-assessments

• a closing date for all stages to be completed by

• a date where there will be general business feedback on overall performance and celebration of success 

How long each stage should take to complete e.g.

• 30 minute one-to-one session to complete the second stage

Clear advice for what each party is supposed to contribute any why it is important

• Expectations of what the Review is and is not for, e.g.

• • all self assessments will be reviewed by someone else 

• • all feedback is valuable as it can lead to business change 

Explain the process

• • formal annual review followed by less formal check-ins throughout the year to monitor progress against objectives and goals 

Review Structure – How to set up your Reviews

As a senior leader, who wants to run a successful review period, you know your content and what you want to find out from your people and at Inform People we want to support you to do that in a simple, clear and valuable way. 

Performance Reviews have changed, and certainly some companies run them in new and innovative ways to alleviate the overwhelm that they can cause; but some form of regular review is still carried out within big and small companies alike. Nearly a decade after we launched our first version of online Reviews, we are still working on and updating our tools for our multi-location clients’ businesses (and we use our own tools internally too). 

There are decisions that need to be made, before even designing the content, that will affect the rollout of your reviews. Some of these are as follows:

How often will you complete formal Reviews?

• • Reviews don’t have to be annual, but keeping them contained to a specific period does help drive completion. 

• • Whatever you decide, communicate it clearly so that everyone knows their deadlines.

How much are you expecting your people to do, whilst also completing their usual roles?

• • Consider keeping questions short and targeted

• • Don’t repeat the same question worded differently

• • Create options 

How are you communicating these goals and deadlines to your people?

• • Digital countdowns on dashboards can keep people on track

• • Direct messages and emails with initial information can be a great start but having a Knowledge Base with easily bookmarkable advice and information can be valuable at every stage if people need to check.

Building your reviews 

What we have learned from our clients and their Reviews in practice, resulting in the best practice guides below:

Targeted forms based on roles

• Varying the length and complexity to the roles
• Use simple drop-down options with free text to support, this will:
  • speed up the review
  • make it less intimidating
  • increase compliance
  • provide structured reporting to analyse feedback 

Set competencies that reflect your business now

• when rated you can reflect on performance and where more training might be required
• using your own rating system, personalise it to your business and gather comments to support it

Use one overall scoring system

• gauge where you are as a business as a whole across multiple review types

Capture training needs

• list the training you are thinking of providing over the next year and get feedback from staff
• review requests against the overall ratings and job roles to develop more bespoke training plans

A combination of all these elements will allow you to put a business focus on Reviews that set out what you are looking to achieve, what you can offer in terms of development, and where the business is as a whole right now. 

Catch Ups and Check Ins 

A once-a-year catch up isn’t enough. In a year so much can change or progress towards objectives and goals can stagnate – there needs to be feedback and request avenues at regular intervals so that a team feels supported, listened to and able to get access to the resources they need to excel at their job. It’s also not realistic for managers of large teams to be conducting full reviews monthly to monitor overall progress and then gather feedback and report on progress. 

By supplementing annual reviews with ‘catch-ups’ your people can get used to having one-on-one conversations with their line managers and monitor progress set against their objectives. Regularly reflecting on their goals and objectives should also make a more formal review a lot less intimidating and regular discussions become the norm. Issues that are raised in a timely manner can be resolved and ambitions supported. 

Head Office Reflection 

One of the key elements is what happens after a Review period – the analysis and actions based on all of the information gathered. This does not mean reading through each individual review but looking at the overall bigger trends and gauging a current state of the business.

These can include:

Business Competency via Ratings:

• Look at an overall summary of ratings achieved by all colleagues and managers
• Notice if there are major differences between the types of Reviews and what scores were achieved
• Consider the overall spread of ratings, are they generally weighted towards the positive?
• Are there any areas of concern?
  • A particular competency such as customer service is always scored poorly across the board, perhaps more training could be provided
  • A certain location or area that scored significantly lower than their counterparts

Multiple Choice Questions

• Look at overall feedback and what actions could be needed

• •  does anything shock you?

• • are there any quick fixes?

• Training Requests
  • Reflect on what you planned to offer, what is realistic to host and provide and what will create the biggest value and impact for your workforce
• Career progression
  • are people willing or eager to relocate or train up to a new role?
  •  this data should allow for a ‘hire from within’ strategy that celebrates your rising stars and builds loyalty

Variations

Considering all the areas above, you can then compare results based on location, job titles, and time in role to identify any trends or outliers to build follow on actions, guided by concrete information. 

• • e.g. you are looking for a new manager in a Manchester venue, and you can see there are 50 supervisors who have been rated excellent across the country, of which 10 have said they are willing to relocate and 2 are willing to travel nationally to relocate. You’ve got a shortlist for promotion without having to advertise externally.

Feedback 

Once your core team has taken the time to reflect on all this gathered information, It’s important to feedback the results to all employees too. This allows you to demonstrate the status of the business as a whole, which also allows for you to celebrate success and show their contribution matters. It completed the Review process and proves that they were worth taking part in. 

This announcement and sharing of results does not have to be issued as a detailed report, on the contrary, it should be a very simple summary for all. Then there is also a benefit in sharing some more specific breakdowns for more senior roles such as Area Managers so that everyone sees the impact that completing their Reviews has had. Especially if there are going to be follow-on actions inspired by the feedback received such as new Development Pathways or Policies informed by the process. 

Why go with a digital system?

In short, the final step of putting analysis into practice would not be possible without a digital system. The sheer quantity of data and collation would mean the feedback would be out of date by the time it was processed and the impact would be lost. Without a speedy turnaround you could lose that interest and engagement built during the Reviews.

From a practical point of view for the colleagues and managers a digital form can also be filled in on any device, over small breaks rather than all at once, then managers can prepare their responses in their own time too before having the 121 conversation where final actions are taken and goals set. This will make a huge difference as the manager wouldn’t be walking into a review cold, not knowing what to expect.

Additionally, over time your people will build up a record of all their past performance which can be accessed with ease which creates a holistic view of their progress with your company. Similarly, digital systems allow for file uploads of supporting evidence for goals and objectives. 

The time saving aspect of a digital system isn’t only for the people being reviewed but also affects the senior teams and admins in the HR department who would otherwise need to ‘crunch’ the data. 

Inform People’s software as a service provides a whole range of ongoing completion reports of Reviews and a comprehensive completion report at the end. With easy to access online reporting, results are always at the fingertips of senior management too.

Why Inform People

There are other performance review systems out there, sure, but we know we offer more. Not only is our system established and tailorable to your needs, it also includes Online Learning, Event Management, Information Collection, Development Pathways, Auditing and Risk Assessments and a Knowledge Base with sharing capabilities. 

From our wide knowledge about what really works at scale for multi-site business, we listen to your requirements to really understand your business goals and importantly always willing to offer alternatives and say when we don’t agree. 

We are hands on, we don’t just drop a system and disappear. We help with set up, changes, testing and number crunching so you can focus on your roles in your business and take action on the results.

In addition, we are so happy with the way our system works that we are willing to connect you with peers in non-competitive industries, allowing you to expand your network, share best practice and gain a deeper understanding of what you could be achieving with your own Virtual PA from Inform People.

Ready to get set up with your next Review period now? Just get in touch in the way you feel most comfortable: via email, or by calling: +44 (0)161 713 4104.