The best performance review process
At Commcoterie, we’re all about communication — but the backbone of communication is process. An effective process allows for unlimited creativity.
We teach leaders and their teams how to have better performance conversations at every opportunity, not just during a formal performance review, but to make those conversations even more effective, it’s best if they fit into a well-planned performance management process. If that process isn’t in place, the conversation strategies will help, but they won’t be utilized to their fullest potential.
There are two common issues organizations run into when it comes to their performance review process:
There either isn’t a process or their process doesn’t work (because people don’t complete the reviews, they complete them but they don’t take any action afterward, employee feedback indicates that the reviews are pointless, etc., etc.)
When a process is created or exists, it’s not customized to the organization and if it is customized, it’s not aligned with the organizational culture or effectively made
So what’s the best way to structure performance reviews?
There are a million ways to do performance reviews, which is a blessing and a curse. You can customize your performance management process to suit your organization’s or team’s needs but how are you supposed to know which “best practices” are best for you?
There is no one best way.
You can Google “best performance review templates” all day long, but whether you go with a template, software, or create your own system, there are three questions that will help you design the right process for your organization.
What is the goal for your performance reviews?
You might be thinking Duh, to REVIEW PERFORMANCE! But why? Do you have structured career pathing or set raise and promotion schedules that performance reviews play a part in?
Are your performance reviews done annually across the company at the same time to compare individuals and teams and track growth year over year? Or maybe they’re done on an annual basis per individual and used to create individual growth plans.
When you know why you want to do performance reviews (or revamp your process), it’ll help you build out the review process itself.
Do your performance reviews fit into your company culture?
If you have a relaxed culture and throw a completely formalized process at everyone, it might not be the vibe you’re going for. If you have a structured or more formal culture and no review process in place, employees might feel like something important is missing.
Whatever process you create should be in line with your organizational culture (if you’re not sure, a culture, communication, and change audit can help).
Is the performance review process you’re envisioning overcomplicated?
Quarterly reviews to show growth over the course of the year. Detailed metrics and charts. Long-form comments for managers to fill out. These are all things I’ve seen (and eliminated) from clients’ performance review processes.
Just like with change management (also a process), when it comes to performance reviews, if you periodically check in with yourself and your team during the design process, and ask these two questions, you’ll be well on your way to designing a performance review process that folks actually use and that doesn’t suck up valuable work time:
Why are we doing this?
How can it be easier?
Answer those two questions, then go back to the very first question — What is the goal for your performance reviews? — and your process will start to take shape.
Let’s take the example with the quarterly reviews
A client came to me for a performance conversation workshop. Before we even got started with the workshop, I looked at their performance review process.
They used to do annual reviews, but during an employee survey, employees essentially said they weren’t given enough guidance during the year and annual reviews felt too far apart. So they started to do a full performance review every quarter.
Then managers complained that it took too much time. They said the conversations were too repetitive (they were just saying the same things every quarter), so the company got in touch with me because they wanted to make the conversations more effective.
But clearly, the process wasn’t working either. So we designed a better one!
First, we explored the goals for their performance reviews
At this company, the managers used annual reviews to determine personal performance, raise and promotion potential, and end-of-year bonus amounts. Employees craved more ongoing performance conversations so that those end-of-year decisions were clear and they had more opportunity to course-correct if needed.
Then, we determined whether the performance reviews fit into their company culture
Clearly the quarterly process didn’t fit into their company culture. The managers were very frustrated by the time they took and the employees felt like they needed more high-quality feedback instead of repetitive conversations that just checked boxes.
They needed something that would make it easier for managers and higher value for employees.
Is the performance review process you’re envisioning overcomplicated?
The HR team intended to sign up for some new performance management software. So I asked: Why are we doing this?
Their reasoning was that it would make the process easier for managers and give employees more detailed data about themselves.
As a general rule, I never add additional tools or software when existing tools and software can be used. HR was going to have to onboard everyone, the employees were going to have to learn how to use the software, the managers were still going to have to complete the reviews, and they had no idea if the employees were even going to be happy with the new process. So I asked: How can it be easier?
We decided not to use a new system, but to beta test a process in technology they already used to even see what the outcomes of a better process would be.
Which took us back to the very first question — What is the goal for your performance reviews?
What we created:
The managers wanted a process that took less time and the employees felt like they needed more high-quality feedback. The company used Google Workspace (formerly known as Google Suite) for everything, so we created a Google Doc for each employee (_Employee Name_Performance Reviews_Year) shared with the manager, the employee, and the HR business partner.
Each quarter, we made it the employee’s responsibility to fill out their review ahead of time. They detailed their progress against their goals, explained mistakes, missteps, and learnings, updated their goals for the next quarter, and shared their aspirations for the future.
By doing a pulse check with employees, we found that it wasn’t that they wanted feedback dictated to them more often, but that they craved more autonomy and participation in the process to ensure clarity among all parties.
The managers set aside 15 minutes ahead of their meetings to review the document and make notes or comments, then they had a 30-minute “performance review” conversation that took place during an already-scheduled weekly 1:1 and the manager took 15 minutes directly after the meeting to make additional comments or notes in the document. This took place three quarters a year and in Q4, we kept a (slightly revamped) bigger annual review.
We also had a company-wide workshop to learn how to make those conversations more effective and customized the workshop to briefly train everyone how to best use the document (+ a communication strategy, toolkit, and resources for the new process and way of having conversations, because that’s how we do).
In the next employee engagement survey, they added three questions about the new review process and over 90% of all employees shared that they were highly satisfied with the new process (up from 67%).
Create the process and the creativity and productivity will follow
Need help uncovering and untangling challenges like these, designing people-centered strategies, and creating compelling communication that engages stakeholders for change that sticks? Reach out and tell me about your organization and your teams. If it’s right for us to work together, I’ll let you know. And if not, we can brainstorm your next best step.