I HATE PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS!: TIPS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR EMPLOYERS & EMPLOYEES

Everyone hates performance appraisals. Also known as performance reviews, these are the periodic assessments of an employee's job performance and overall contributions within a company and, while valuable, nobody really looks forward to them.

In this blog, veteran Toronto HR consultant Christine Fowler in Toronto provides the following tips:

Why performance appraisals are important
The 2 performance appraisal fears
How to prepare for the meeting as an employee
How to prepare the meeting as an employer
How do you appraise an employee?
What to do if emotions run high

Why Performance Management Is Important In HR

“Poor feedback practices are a major driver of high employee attrition rates”.

That was the conclusion of a recent report published in Forbes 500 analyzed 2 cycles of performance reviews of 13,000 workers. And it’s not just doing performance appraisals, it’s doing them well. People who received “unactionable feedback” during their performance reviews were significantly less likely to be in the organization a year later.

In other words: If you don’t invest in growing your people, they leave.

3 Reasons Why Employees Fear Performance Appraisals

Fear of the Unknown: What’s the true purpose? The process? The evaluation criteria? A process that is clear, warm & fuzzy will get better results.
Fear of Failure: This stems from concerns about whether the emphasis will be on what isn't working rather than acknowledging and highlighting what is working.
Fear of Feedback: For many employees, appraisal time feels like being in the hot seat – where you and your performance are the topic of discussion. Feedback, good or bad, can be as uncomfortable to receive as it is to give.

4 Ways Prepare For a Performance Review as an Employee

Review your Job Description: Reflect on your achievements and how they relate to your responsibilities in your job description. Have you taken on additional responsibilities throughout the year? Has the scope of your job changed?
Review the past year: Do your accomplishments align with the company's goals and values, complemented by positive feedback from colleagues and customers?
Revisit: Look back at the past and outline your overall performance highlights, challenges and milestones you incurred.
Write your Self-Assessment: Be honest when considering your overall performance. It’s much more effective in a performance review to bring constructive feedback and ideas to the table than it is to pretend failures didn’t happen.

3 Steps to Prepare for Performance Review Meetings as an Employer

Assemble the Data:
Document employee accomplishments, timelines, challenges, objectives, and multi-rater feedback.
Follow this by reviewing the self-assessment and composing the manager's evaluation.
Finally, select the time and venue for the performance appraisal meeting. (Leave an hour.)
Check Your Biases and Errors: Be aware of biases and errors that can give employees an unfair advantage or disadvantage over others:
Personal Bias: The manager rates the employee based on the Manager’s feelings towards the employee – good or bad!
Similar to Me Bias: Inclination to give a higher rating to people with similar interests, skills, and backgrounds as the person doing the rating.
Recency Error: The employee's most recent behaviour becomes the primary focus of the review- good or bad!
Horn Effect: When a single negative attribute causes a manager to rate everything on the low end of a scale.

How Do You Appraise an Employee?

We tend to avoid tough conversations and critical feedback and as a result, not all team members receive the feedback and review they deserve creating missed opportunities for growth, improvement and identifying rising performance issues.

Even worse, when you shy away from giving direct feedback the employee is more likely to quit. Individuals who received low-quality feedback were 63% more inclined to leave their organization, a trend consistent across high, middle, and low performers. Here’s 4 tips to giving good feedback:

Initiate the performance discussion by allowing the employee to speak first, encouraging them to provide a self-assessment of their work. Request specific examples to gain a comprehensive understanding.
Recognize and discuss notable accomplishments, emphasizing strengths. Delve into areas where challenges were encountered, openly addressing instances that didn't go as planned.
Support your feedback with relevant examples and, throughout the conversation, reinforce performance expectations to foster a constructive and forward-looking dialogue.
Treat every demographic equally: Studies have found women of all races and people of color of all genders received lower-quality feedback, and less feedback overall, than everyone else.

What To Do if Emotions Run High?

In navigating challenging conversations, it's crucial to acknowledge that defensive behaviour is a normal response.

Maintain focus on the specific issue at hand rather than attributing it to the person involved.
Strive for objectivity, and employ active listening techniques such as paraphrasing, clarification, and checking for understanding to foster effective communication.
If tensions escalate, consider taking a break to allow emotions to settle. If needed, revisit the discussion at a later time, ensuring a more conducive environment for constructive dialogue.

Christine Fowler is a human resources leader with over 20 years experience. She started her career at one of Canada’s most famous micro-breweries building an HR team from the ground up. Now she is just one of the HR Consultants at Toronto based AugmentHR.

Are you struggling with your performance appraisal plan? Or need help with an overall talent management strategy? Augment your team with one of our experienced HR Consultants like Christine. Get a quote now!

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