What's to Be Done About Performance Reviews?

November 27, 2006 from Harvard Business School – “The topic of performance reviews triggers a wide range of complex responses. The fact that most of their strongest critics elected to reply anonymously to this month's column suggests that there are also political overtones to the subject. This month's debate was much like a case discussion, one that is often hard to summarize. But in an attempt to do it, here is my "take" on what you have said collectively…”

180 View - While this Harvard Business School article and related survey addresses many of the important issues surrounding Employee Performance Reviews, perhaps a ‘refresher’ on the importance of performing such reviews would be helpful.

Most of the companies that Lawrence Young has consulted with only do employee performance reviews on an annual basis, and usually as part of a yearly salary review. Lawrence suggests that employee performance be evaluated on a quarterly basis at minimum, and that these reviews are of a great benefit to not only the employee, but to the company and the employee’s supervisor as well.

Performance evaluation benefits the employee by:

• Translating job duties into specific performance expectations (goals/strategies) and standards;
• Prioritizing goals to be accomplished during the evaluation period;
• Helping the employee focus on the job and on how it contributes to the overall goals of the business unit;
• Providing meaningful job performance feedback;
• Providing concrete suggestions for how job performance can be improved;
• Laying out a plan for future career development;
• Recognizing work achievements;
• Providing a formal opportunity for the employee to inform the supervisor about barriers to work accomplishment, to ask for clarification of duties and roles, to identify resources and tools needed to help improve performance, and to highlight work achievements and the strengths he brings to the job.
  

Performance evaluation benefits the supervisor by:

• Clearly communicating job performance expectations and standards to all parties involved so there is no basis for confusion or disagreement later on;
• Serving as formal documentation of numerous personnel actions such as training needs, performance improvement needs, recognition of goal accomplishment and exceptional performance, pay increase, job redesign, and discipline;
• Providing a means of either encouraging the employee to continue good work or to change/improve in areas that don’t meet expectations;
• Providing an opportunity in time to paint a picture of past performance and lay a roadmap for future planning and development;
• Reinforcing the employee’s accountability for job performance

Performance evaluation benefits the company by:

• Communicating to employees the overall corporate strategic plan so that they can plan for the future;
• Engaging everyone in the organization, from top to bottom, to help the company successfully fulfill its mission;
• Helping to define and clarify roles – who does what, how and when – in order to foster responsibility and accountability throughout the workplace;
• Helping determine when program and policy changes need to be made;
• Aligning the work goals/strategies of each employee with the mission and strategic goals of the company in order to deliver its products and services effectively;
• Providing a uniform method of giving each employee constructive feedback about their job performance.

According to Lawrence, the importance of doing employee performance reviews on a frequent and regular basis cannot be overstated. “After all” says Lawrence, “you cannot manage what you cannot measure!”

By the way, are you aware that there are usually government grants available to train your employees if your company is based in Quebec and its gross payroll in 2006 was between $1 million and $5 million?

As well, there are a host of other grants, subsidies and cost-saving measures that may be able to help your company significantly reduce its labour costs and address its human resource issues.

To obtain more information, without cost or obligation, on how your Quebec-based company can benefit from one or more of these opportunities, please contact Lawrence Young at lyoung@180systems.com.