Today’s Morning Buzz is brought to you by Hannah Brown, Traffic Operations Manager for the City of Huntsville, AL. Connect with Hannah on LinkedIn.
- What I’m reading: “Just Add Water: My Swimming Life” by Katie Ledecky (Have been really into the Olympics this year.)
- What I’m watching: The Olympics and Paralympics.
- What I’m listening to: The podcast Who Trolled Amber? Fascinating listen on how bot accounts can affect what we see on our social media feeds.
Imagine employees reminding leadership that their yearly review is due, not because of an impending raise, but because they are excited for the opportunity to sit down and discuss their performance and the quality of their working environment. There is much “back and forth” about whether yearly reviews are even important, or are they a thing of the past? Do they create more problems than solutions? Every leadership book seems to say something different. After a few years of experience, I say, “the review in itself accomplishes nothing, unless, it is accompanied by genuine, two-sided conversation.”
To be useful, reviews need to be about more than just giving an employee a performance score. Instead, managers should strive to create a conversation where more than just performance is discussed. This should be a time where employees can be open and honest about concerns and ideas, as well as able to provide constructive criticism to their leadership team. It is difficult to create this space. Management may say that they are receptive to feedback, but it takes more than just stating this to create the type of environment where employees feel comfortable enough to be truthful with feedback. Some good rules of thumb for creating this space are as follows:
- Discussion topics in a review should not be a surprise to the employee. If it is important enough to bring up and record during a formal review, time should have been taken throughout the previous year to have conversations with the employee.
- Every score assigned to an employee should include specific, in-depth comments on how that score was determined. High scores should include a list of specific projects and strengths which were impressive. Low scores should outline steps on how the employee can make corrections.
- If managers are prepared to give constructive criticism they should be prepared to receive it.
- Clear the schedule. Turn off the phone. Make listening the priority.
In addition to clear ground rules, it is helpful to develop some job-specific questions that will help show employees that their management team wants to hear from them about what can be done to improve their day-to-day work life. For example:
- Are there any tools or technological advances that would better equip you to do your job?
- How can management communicate better with you as an individual?
- Is there any training we can provide that would help you feel more comfortable with your job tasks?
- What is one goal you would like to achieve over the next year and how can we help you achieve this? (Revisit this the following year to see if the goal has been met.)
These questions can become jumping-off points for the kind of open conversations desired within reviews. Having job specific questions also shows that management is interested and invested in hearing feedback and in using it to improve working environments.
The final piece to creating an open conversation in reviews — stop making them so formal. Tight, stuffy, formal review spaces do not foster open communication. Employees are often nervous going into reviews, they are taking in a year’s worth of feedback, often with a panel of their bosses staring at them. To get meaningful feedback, the nervous anticipation must be removed. Give employees their scores in writing prior to their scheduled review meeting. Allow them at least 24 hours to read and absorb their performance feedback. This will give them time to think about and process the information. This is the “magic” key to getting that open feedback. As opposed to silence and blank stares, employees will show up to appraisals with notepads full of good ideas and constructive criticism for the leadership team as well as comments on their scores and their own ideas on how to better themselves. Give them the space to process.
Deciding on what reviews should look like for any team takes time, research, and effort. But the effort is rewarding and eventually results in landing on a format that provides plenty of valuable insight into a team’s wellbeing. Review formats will look a little different for everyone. Building an atmosphere of trust and openness is a struggle and is a time investment for leaders. But the feedback will be invaluable. The formal, one-sided review process is dead. Replace it with a conversation, that’s what brings positive change!