Performance Management

Prepared Appraisal Reviews

All too often performance reviews are not well prepared for, left to the last minute and conducted in a hasty non-collaborative environment.  The individual feels unimportant, unvalued and misdirected and the manager/supervisor is glad that the performance review is out of the way for another year.

Benefits to the organisation

•      Improvement of organisation’s performance towards business goals

•      Allows for the business objectives to be cascaded through the organisation

•      Raises awareness of expectations standards and best practice

•      Improvements of teams’ performance

•      Development of the individual

•      Improvement of relations between manager and employee

Benefits for the manager/supervisor

•      To agree on measures & standards to evaluate future performance

•      To connect employee goals & objectives to company objectives

•      Help Managers/Supervisors manage the performance of their staff

•      To improve performance, to be more effective and efficient & stimulate motivation

•      To identify training needs to improve performance

•      To open up two-way communication

Benefits for the employee

•      To evaluate their personal development needs looking forward

•      Formally evaluate their contribution in the past year

•      Voice concerns or difficulties that have hindered their performance

•      Clarify what results are expected & prioritise activities for the future

•      Establish a sense of control over areas of their accountability

•      Identify ways to develop their skills in current or future positions

•      Improve their job satisfaction and enable them to do their job better

Preparation for Appraisal reviews

Manager Preparation:

 Step One - Review Paperwork:

•      A copy of their last appraisal review if applicable,

•      Their job responsibilities, Key Performance Indicators or competencies etc

•      A list of their goals and objectives

•      Any Continuous Professional Development that they have completed.

•      Collect together any information you have on their year’s performance i.e. delivery of projects, special activities, letters/email/notes of thanks or praise, or problems etc.

•      Notes from any reviews you may have had throughout the year 

•      This year’s documentation

•      The business plans and targets for the coming year

Step Two - Reviewing Results:

For each objective, review the measurement criteria for that objective and assess how successful the employee has been in meeting their objectives.

•      Strengths and weaknesses

•      Performance against specific tasks and KPI’s

•      Gap analysis of knowledge/skill/competence

 To account for the experience gained in a job, the performance standards should increase as a person remains in the same job. This factor must be taken into consideration to the extent that improved results are expected with increased experience. Improvement in performance based on experience should result in such things as improved quality or quantity of work, reduced costs, and better use of resources.

Step Three - Supporting the Review:

•      What data is available to support the review?

•      How objective is the data?

•      Were there extenuating circumstances regarding the performance toward the objective?

There should be specific, concrete reasons why the performance of an objective is reviewed the way it is.

Good performance/strengths

Praising the individual

The key to developing people will always be to concentrate on letting them know when they are doing something right instead of something wrong. Yet most people are still managed by being basically left alone until they make a mistake that's noticeable and then their boss criticises them.

Tell people up-front that you are going to let them know how they are doing. Then there are three main things you need to emphasise with praise.

First, be immediate. Don't save praise for the annual appraisal. Some employees will only recognise that they are doing good work when their boss ‘tells’ them.

Second, be specific. Just saying to someone, 'Good job.' is nice but it is not very helpful because they do not know specifically what is good so that they could do it again. You can add extra value to the praise by letting the individual know what positive consequences/effects the results gave to their colleagues or patients.

Finally, share your feelings about their work. Tell people how good you feel about what they did that was right, and how it helps the organisation and the other people who work there. Stop for a moment of silence to let them enjoy 'feeling' how good you feel. End with a reaffirmation and encourage them to keep up the good work.

Remember to praise progress even if it is only approximately right. Perfect behaviour is a journey that happens one step at a time. A supervisor/manager's job is to manage the progress toward the goal. An effective supervisor/manager thus constantly looks for opportunities to praise progress or to redirect.

At the time of appraisal, make sure you pull together their strengths and focus on some examples to help them continue to do well in these areas

How to Write Objectives 

•      Objectives should be written in “end results” terms.

•      Objectives should be a brief description of:

-    “What” an employee should achieve

-    “When” an employee should achieve a required task

-    “How” well the task should be achieved

·     Objectives should be written briefly in 1 or 2 sentences.

·     An objective should be something which is to be achieved to a pre-determined level of quantity/quality, within a specified time period.  A good objective will:

1.    Be ‘over and above’ the job (be ‘stretching’)

2.   Be linked to the organisation's objectives

3.   Be ‘SMART’  

·       S   - SPECIFIC

·       M  - MEASURABLE

·       A   - ATTAINABLE

·       R   - RELEVANT

·       T   - TIME BASED

How to give feedback - EECC model

Example – of the observed behaviour

Effect – describe the effect it is having

Check – the recipient agrees

Change – work with the recipient to suggest an alternative

Following helping Jean to do something new on the computer a little while ago, you need to give her some constructive feedback as you have observed she is making some errors.

Example -      Jean I’d like to talk to you about adding notes. I have noticed that you are good at opening the correct files and you seem comfortable moving around the screen. On two out of three times, you have missed adding notes to the relevant files when the X has appeared.

Balanced, they are good at some aspects and you want to reinforce that behaviour

Objective and factual,

Observed

Specific details are explained

Timely just after observing the second error or whatever is relevant

Effect –          This could cause you and other people problems in the future if these important clarification points are not accurately added to the file

Be clear about the consequences

Check –         Were you aware you had missed this?

          Had you noticed the error?

          Did you realise this?

          What is causing this?

          Is that the way you see it?

Use relevant questions to check their understanding. There is no point continuing if they don’t see the problem as they will probably not agree with the solution. It is also important to see it from their perspective and to be open to changing your mind if there is a good reason to.

Change –      How can you do it differently?

                    How can you ensure you do this correctly?

What other things would help?

So let’s agree that next time…

Shall we work through the next example together?

Get them to come up with suggestions and if they struggle then make some suggestions as a last resort.

Finally, agree on the action steps for the future.

To ensure lasting change make sure to catch them doing it right. If they continue to make the mistake then you need to give them more constructive feedback.