Ask CPP: Are employee performance reviews worthwhile?

"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."
- Yogi Berra

If implemented correctly, performance reviews can be a valuable tool to help employees evaluate their work and set goals for the future. However, if you don’t think out how you will conduct the reviews, you might have a disaster on your hands. The following are a few best practices concerning employee performance reviews from the HR experts at CPP. We hope these ideas will help make sure your performance reviews are a win for your company and your employees.

Talk about advancement opportunities. Employees want to know where they are going and what opportunities might be available in the years ahead. Highlight specific things that need to happen in order for advancement to take place.

Don’t forget to talk about next year’s goals. Many managers talk about if the employee has met, exceeded or not met last year’s goals and forget to build on that conversation. So for example, you can congratulate your employee, “You’ve exceeded sales goals by 10%. And this year, I’d like to you to focus on a goal of 15%.”

Make the review a two way street. This meeting should give employees a chance to ask for more help or resources and offer ideas on how processes and procedures can run more efficiently.

Don’t store up all of your feedback for this meeting. A good manager will give direct, immediate and specific feedback and offer supervision throughout the year. Don’t save everything for this meeting. It will be overwhelming to you and your team member. Nothing should really come as a surprise during this review.

Do it for everyone—or don’t do it at all. As a manager, you need to decide if this is something you’d like to embark upon. If you do, then make sure you make reviews available to everyone on your team. In addition, everyone in the company should be reviewed, even the managers and executives.

Prepare. Nothing looks worse to an employee than having this important meeting on the fly. By taking the time to prepare, you are showing your employee that you care and will take the time to help him succeed.

For more ideas on helping your employees get the most out of a review process, check out this article on do's and don'ts for conducting annual performance reviews.

At CPP, we are more than payroll – we offer many different HR services and employee benefits solutions to help your organizing run efficiently and effectively. If you’d like to hear more about how we can take some of the HR tasks off your desk so that you can focus on your goals, please give us a call. We’d be happy to help!