Making a success performance review meeting

Most of companies will do the performance appraisal in the middle of year and end of year. But many of managers, team leaders and supervisors struggle with how to ensure that the performance review meetings are motivational for the employee, especially for unsatisfied performers.

I used to fail to conduct effective performance review with my staff and I spent three hours but still couldn't convince my staff to accept the appraisal grade. I felt so tired and lost patient to continue it that day. I gave a day for my staff and me to cool down and research "star" in her performance of evaluation period (STAR: Specific, Time, Action, Result). After that, we sat down again to do performance review and reached agreement of score. From this case, I learned that good preparation of review meeting is very important and how to ensure to meet employee’s motivational needs.

Employee's motivational needs

·         A fair and objective review

·         A two-way discussion

·         When my viewpoint is listened to and valued

·         Not just about performance – it’s about my development and job satisfaction

·         A chance to review my objectives

·         Resulting in a clear plan of action

 

Preparation

·         Pre-information-collection by manager and employee

·         Crafting performance meeting agenda including: Opening, performance review by objective, new objective setup, employee development plan and career plan, job satisfaction discussion.

 

Ending and follow up

·         Reviewing and summarizing the evaluation outcomes and agree to the next steps

·         Regular review, feedback, and coaching

·         Action items following up and new objects set up

 

Generally, performance review is a cyclic process -  manager and staff need to go through review-update-review process. If you just conduct appraisal meeting with your staff one time per year, the meeting will fall into argument or ineffective situation.