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Performance Reviews

Performance Reviews:

Staying in-touch and in-tune with your individual team members

 

Performance Reviews are hard to get right!

Whether you are the manager or the employee, there is often a sense of trepidation, dread or duty attached to them. Equally, we all know that they are important and are also highly valued by many employees.

As a result of these commonly held love/hate feelings, Performance Reviews bubble away as a current topic. Their worth is constantly being questioned and processes fine-tuned in an effort to improve engagement and generate a more positive perception.

What is the secret?

It would be fair to say that most people, to a lesser or greater degree, want some attention to be focused on them. Traditionally, Performance Reviews are conducted either annually or bi-annually. To stay in touch with team members’ personal feelings about their work, as well as their workplace aspirations, and their performance on the job, more communication than this is required.

Day to day interactions are, of course, important. They tend to be very much operational and concerned about the job at hand. They are necessary and facilitate and provide support to meet the demands that arise daily. But this is still not enough.

The most important key to unlocking great performance is to

Link the

Day to day inter-actions that occur between a manager and employee

with the

Performance Reviews

by holding

Regular scheduled one-on-one meetings with each person in your team.

This cyclical communication approach means that you are in close contact with your team members throughout the year. If you think through and conduct your individual One–on–One meetings in a standard way with regular topics up for discussion, then you will find that you are in-touch and in-tune with each team member throughout the year. You will be able to canvas all the important topics that are covered in Performance Reviews.

How do One-on-Ones actually work?

  • Decide on a standard format for your One-on-Ones
  • Customise this format to suit each individual member of your team
  • Work out the most appropriate scheduling of meetings that works for each individual relative to their need and the seniority of the job. Some need weekly meetings, some fortnightly, some monthly
  • Hold the meetings regularly!
  • Act on what is decided.
  • Cover the topics on a by-exception basis so that the One-on-One meetings are short, punchy and useful

By regularly holding the One-on-One meetings, the Performance Reviews simply become a more in-in-depth extension of them. One-on-One meetings provide a non-threatening and natural forum for current work issues, as well other important matters beyond the daily grind, to be raised, discussed and resolved. Come Performance Review time, discussion flows and real benefit from the annual or bi-annual “stand back” review is the outcome.

Introduce a system of cyclical one-on-one communication and performance reviews, and watch performance improve.

Keen to learn more? Positive People have tried and tested systems and formats across both Performance Reviews and One-on-Ones to help you improve performance. Contact us today at info@positivepeople.co.nz or 09 445 1077.

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360-Degree Feedback Surveys

360-degree feedback surveys:

Forming a rounded view

What is 360-degree feedback?

360-degree surveys are a tool that allows employees to receive performance feedback from their manager, peers, direct reports and other internal or external stakeholders. It provides a rounded view of the individual and usually results in employees accepting the feedback, as it is validated through coming from a range of people and angles.

People who are chosen as feedback providers are selected in a shared process by both the employee and their manager, with support from HR. Generally, they will be people who regularly interact with the employee who is receiving feedback.

What is the purpose?

The process aims to assist the employee to understand their strengths and weaknesses and to provide insights into where there are opportunities for development.

360-degree feedback surveys can help an organisation to:

  • Get better quality employee feedback that is more accurate and insightful than only considering feedback from an employee’s manager. Also, if there is a personality issue between the employee and their manager, multi-source feedback reduces the risk of this impacting their relationship and performance assessment
  • Highlight gaps in perception between the employee’s own perspective (demonstrated through completing the survey themselves) and the perception of others
  • Improve leadership strength by including employees in the leadership feedback process
  • Gauge the relative strengths of a team through gathering comparative peer related information
  • Identify individual and organisational development needs, so learning and development spend can be more effectively allocated
  • Help team members to work more effectively together – improving communication and processes
  • Empower the employee to take responsibility for their own development and career
  • Improve the level of customer service the organisation is providing where external stakeholders, like customers, are included.

How do you implement a 360-degree?

For a 360-degree feedback survey to have a positive impact on your organisation, it must be integrated into the learning and development goals of the business and your performance management and review system.

It’s also important that the feedback is shared with the employee by a trained coach. This allows the employee to understand the feedback by discussing unclear comments or seeking more information about the ratings and their basis. A good coach will also help the employee to focus on the positives and how they can build on their strengths, rather than dwell for too long on the negatives. Where areas for development are identified, a coach will support the employee to find solutions and make positive change.

360–degree feedback surveys are a powerful but under-utilised leadership development tool. Improve performance and ask us about them today.

We support businesses to implement effective 360-degree feedback systems. Contact Positive People today to discuss how we can help you introduce this valuable performance enhancement tool. info@positivepoople.co.nz or 09 445 1077