Strategic HR Technology Investment: A Comprehensive Checklist for Global HR Teams
It has only been a few weeks that you’ve become a manager and you are required to review the performance of your team.
How do you prepare yourself for the review meeting? The performance review process consists of various responsibilities which include setting smart goals, assessing the employee’s progress and monitoring it constantly.
Here are a few tips for new managers to review the performance of their employees:
This prevents any unfortunate surprises on either end. Initially, set goals and expectations with your employees. This way, they have a guide for the year ahead and know what kind of results they need to achieve. And this way, you know what they are working on and don’t feel like they are off doing something on their own.
The above advice is for when managers and employees are both able to kick off a new financial year together. In some circumstances, this isn’t the case. Managers might come in half-way through the year as a new replacement or even later. In cases like those, it does not make sense to reinvent the wheel and start from the beginning. Instead, talk to the employee and find out what they are working on. View their goal progress and ask for their feedback on how they are performing. It would be even better if you could talk to their previous manager to get their feedback as well. This way, both you and the employee are on track to review their performance at the end of the year.
Before you to get to managing people, you have to get to know them. And by getting to know, I do not mean in the sense of knowing their deepest darkest secret or fears but rather, gaining an understanding of them, their skill sets, their personality, their way of working, etc. All these factors can help you manage them better because when you know how a direct report works, you can adapt your managerial style to one that suits both of you.
On the other end of the spectrum, take heed and ensure that you do not blur boundaries between you and your direct reports. Even if you were friends with them before, you might need to adopt a different stance after becoming a manager. This transition is understandably tough and awkward but regardless, it is one you must make.
Understand the importance of performance reviews in an organization and prepare for the review meeting before hand. Know how your organization usually manages employee performance and document the process so that you can finish the process effectively. Know your employees and prepare for the discussion that you are going to have with these different levels of employees.
Remember that they should be reviewed only based on their performance and not their personality during the review meeting.
A performance review meet cannot be a surprise. Employees need to know before-hand that their performance is going to be reviewed. You should give them an opportunity to come prepared for their review. Surprise review meetings are of no benefit for anyone; neither the employee nor the organization can gain anything from surprise review meetings.
So schedule the performance review meet and remind the employees beforehand so that they too come prepared for their performance review.
Performance review meetings are long and have a great impact on the employees and the organization. It is important that you schedule enough time for these meetings and follow the schedule. Do not cancel these meetings for any reason because reviewing performance review is important for you to increase the overall performance of the entire organization.
In a performance review meeting, it is important that you give the employees an opportunity to talk. Not just an opportunity, make this a two-way discussion where both the employee and you get to talk about various aspects of performance.
Remember that the main aim of this meeting is not just evaluating the employee performance but also to improve it.
It is important to conduct these reviews regularly. Regular and frequent reviews help you save costs. They also help you retain your existing employees by improving them time to time and saving you from the pain of hiring again.
Don’t rely on memory alone to get through a performance review. Maintaining documentation about an employee’s performance, their strengths, and weaknesses, their accomplishments and weaknesses, etc helps a performance review run more smoothly.
This way, you can also use examples to illustrate your point better. This tip also has the added effect of showing your employee that you actually have been monitoring their performance and have been taking note of what they are doing.
If you want to know how Engagedly can help you with performance reviews, request a personalized demo and talk to our experts!
