How to Improve Performance Reviews
Posted August 4th, 2014
During a performance review, the conversation generally tends to be rather one sided. The manager does most of the talking, usually telling the employee where he or she needs to improve and how he can go about doing it.
But some business consultants argue that this is not the best way to go about doing a performance review. They contend that, rather than spending most of the time talking, managers need to spend more time listening.
Instead of coming up with all of the answers, managers need to focus on asking more questions.
Asking the employee questions makes the person think a lot more, to really deliberate about issues affecting his or her performance. In this way, the worker and manager might come to have deeper and clearer insights about performance issues – better answers than the manager alone might come up with simply by telling the employee what the problems are.
Not only will this approach generate better answers, it will help a manager better understand the employee.
What kinds of questions will elicit the best answers?
To help in finding out what most motivates employees, ask about their favorite project during the past year and why they liked it so much. Ask them what they did that helped contribute to the success of the project.
You should ask them what they see as their biggest mistake or failure over the past year as well, and what they learned from it. This will help to determine if employees are really learning from their mistakes, which contributes to professional growth. It also gives an indication of what tasks or processes might cause problems in the future and will help you to prepare for them.
You should also ask about what new skills or experience the person has gained during the past year.
Asking what employees like about the company and what makes them stay will help with employee retention and what you can do to retain employees. You should find out as well what could induce an employee to leave the company.
Ask the employees what they need to help make their job easier, whether it be training, new procedures or equipment. Often, people won’t volunteer this information until he or she is specifically asked about it. Even if their request is something minor, it could make a huge difference in how they do their job.
Make a serious effort to fulfill the person’s request, or be able to explain to the person why you cannot give them what they want.
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