Find this helpful guide to good appraisals from a team of HR professionals.
We all know that providing regular feedback in a constructive manner helps to bring about improvements. Yet we find many employers don’t do regular formal reviews or an end of year appraisal.
There is a stigma that they are time consuming, a paper exercise and ineffective.
Doing a performance review or appraisals properly are a great tool to bring about an improvement in performance or behaviour but more importantly help employees to feel valued and understand how they add value. It’s also a formal time that is set out from work to really discuss and agree on how an employee can contribute to the organisation’s objectives, what support they need to develop themselves so they can contribute positively to the overall objective of the organisation.
We produced this guide to help managers and business owners implement constructive performance reviews into their business. It should answer your questions, but if you still want to know more, as always, we’d be happy to help. Just give us a call.
When appraisals are held in a positive, constructive and collaborative manner with the employee, these are a powerful tool that will help to engage your team and to make them feel valued.
It’s a time that is set aside, to focus solely on development, learning, transparent communication, discuss learnings and safe space to agree support needed.
As a business you can measure performance and reward those who are putting in the effort. Equally, you can discuss measures with those who are not.
When appraisals are done right, it helps management to write down, be specific about expectations, KPI’s, objective and goals. Where performance and behaviours are below expectations, it can help to agree a personal development plan. A personal development plan is where areas for improvement are recorded, how an outcome will be measured and the timescale for improvement is set out.
Another reason you might introduce appraisals into your workplace is to identify any gaps in the skills set and knowledge within your business and help you to plan on how to bridge that gap. It can help to map out career progression which in SME’s is sometimes lacking.
The whole process can help you spot potential that you may not have seen otherwise.
The annual appraisal is also a golden time to talk about team goals and expectations and how everyone fits into the bigger picture to achieve those goals and expectations.
First of all, inform the team that performance appraisals are being implemented and how you propose they will improve the overall performance and productivity of the organisation and help to create a valued, skilled and engaged team.
Having a form, template or framework helps managers stick to what needs to be discussed and provides a format on how to conduct the appraisal constructively.
The form does not have to be pages and pages long. I remember from my corporate days how management dreaded the time and effort it took from them to complete forms that the whole experience of an appraisal started off on a negative.
As long as there is a consistent structure it can be a relatively short form. There is no perfect appraisal form. It’s what is right for your business.
o Set out KPI’s, objectives, goals
o How the individual has performed so far with some positive and constructive feedback
o Areas they need to improve on with suggestions on how they can do that
o Feedback from employee
Once a simple appraisal system has been implemented, this can be built on to improve further by introduce feedback from colleagues and wider team, this is known as 360-degree feedback.
Reviewing performance/behaviour should be a regular occurrence. It is usually done daily or weekly informally but to record this and take time to review together with the employee it should be regular. It is very typical to have a review every 3 or 6 months then an annual appraisal.
More importantly, both manager and employee should prepare for the meeting to gather evidence to discuss the agreed areas for conversation so that the meeting is productive and sticks to the purpose of the appraisal meeting. Too often without a proper format these meetings can be overtaken with other matters, derailing the appraisal process.
1. Ask how your employee is, this can be on a professional and personal level.
2. Check they have prepared for the meeting and you both understand the areas that are being covered in the meeting.
3. Go through the positives, what has gone well and congratulate the employee. Give kudos where it is deserved.
4. Discuss areas that need improvement and set out expectations.
5. Discuss areas for development and career progression.
6. This should be a two-way conversation and an agreement on how to progress on areas for concern and development.
7. Ask open ended questions such as what do you think is going well? What could you do differently? What actions will you take?
8. Don’t rush the process but equally don’t let the space become hijacked with other matters. You may need to agree to discuss other matters outside of the appraisal meeting.
9. Agree objectives, how they will be measured and time frame.
10. End the meeting on a positive note
Keeping a record of the meeting is important and copies of the completed form should be provided to the employee too.
Having regular conversations help to create better relationships in the workplace and communication becomes easier and more transparent.
If you’d like some expert HR support or guidance along the way, just give Lunar HR Consultants a call.
We are friendly and approachable and we would love to hear from you.
If you would like to enquire about any of our services or just have a question you would like to ask, please contact us and we will be more than happy to answer your questions.
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