Cooking up an Annual Performance Review
Introduction
The end of another year is just around the corner, which for many organizations means the annual performance review is looming. The concept of formal, annual reviews has been under much scrutiny in recent years and is typically met with dread. A recent survey indicated 77% of Human Resources Executives believe performance reviews aren’t an accurate representation of employee performance.
However, feedback is essential and the more we prepare ourselves for our annual review, the more we will get out of it.
A few years ago, I had a conversation with a co-worker that was upset by their annual review. I assumed they must have received negative feedback and asked if they wanted to talk about it. Surprisingly, they had received very positive feedback. They were told they were a fantastic employee, nothing needed to change, and to keep up the good work. I was perplexed. That was amazing news … wasn’t it?
My co-worker wanted more from the experience. They were craving a constructive dialogue focused less on their achievements over the past year and more on their development opportunities looking toward the future. Even though that was their goal of the review, it was apparent that my co-worker hadn’t prepared anything to contribute to the dialogue.
The onus of a constructive dialogue is as much on the employee as it is on the manager in preparing for the annual review. My coworker and I began to lament on how daunting the process of preparing for the annual review can be and how difficult it was to remember our achievements over the past year as well as thinking through how to articulate learnings and long-term goals. We started to joke around about how nice it would be to have a recipe listed out to help us prepare.
In all seriousness, preparing for your annual performance review is a lot like developing a recipe: contextualizing your main achievements is comparable to following a step-by-step process:
Start with a list of ingredients used (i.e., skills and resources)
Identify the cooking process (i.e., tasks and strategies) and describe the final dish (i.e., outcomes).
Once a dish has been served, do a “taste test.” What tasted great and what could use a bit more flavor (i.e. successful outcomes and areas for improvement)?
Lastly, list equipment that could have made the recipe easier (i.e. what is needed to be successful in the future).
So there you have it, a recipe for constructive dialogue during an annual performance review!
The Annual Performance Review Recipe
The Ingredient List
In our busy lives, we’re often searching for the quick 5-minute recipe that doesn’t have pages and pages of backstory to scroll through. Sometimes you take the time to make the complex recipe (you know the one) that has you ordering spices you have to dig in the back of the spice cabinet to find. When thinking back through the last year, don’t mistake your performance for the 5-minute recipe. With the proper time set aside for reflection, your year is more like the 3-page recipe with multi-hour prep time. Trust me, don’t skip the prep time! It will make the outcome of your review that much more successful.
Photo by Katie Smith on Unsplash
To prepare, first consider the technical skills you utilized and strengthened throughout the year. Technical skills are also known as hard skills. They’re technical abilities and knowledge that are specific to a profession or particular role. They are key ingredients to your annual review recipe. Are you a marketing professional that worked on social media advertising in the past year? How did you market your brand or product? Did you use a particular platform that helped strengthen your skills?
Secondly, list the soft skills you used as a part of your recipe. Soft skills are personal attributes and people skills that can be used in any job. Think about your communication, collaboration, team work, problem solving, etc. Are you a project manager? How did you collaborate cross-functionally to ensure communication flowed across the project and everyone’s voices were heard? When the project hit a roadblock, what problem solving skills did you utilize to help the team through it?
Lastly, what leadership skills should be added to your recipe? Everyone uses leadership skills in their lives, even if they aren’t considered a formal leader. What did you do to lead your team? How did you motivate your team or your co-workers? Did you delegate tasks effectively so you could focus on the task at hand?
The Cooking Instructions
What steps did you take in the last year and why? What were the main tasks assigned to you and what strategies did you deploy to complete the tasks? A tried and true method of thinking through this is the SMART method.
What Specific goal did you have?
How did you Measure your progress and success?
What Achievement milestones did you set and realize through the task?
Did you ensure the goal was staying Relevant and flexible to the needs of your organization?
Were you able to stick to the Timeframe needed to complete the assignment?
Keep in mind, this portion of your recipe is a fantastic time to demonstrate self-awareness through self-reflection. Did you implement a particular strategy based on past feedback? Were there things that didn’t go so well? What did you learn from them?
As an example, I once worked with a health and safety manager who was given feedback that he needed to teach others in the organization to ensure they learned from him. The next year, he built in extra time to any project or initiative he was working on. When it came time for his next annual review, he was able to show that he heard and acted on the feedback. He had built in time to his project plans to teach teams and to effectively communicate the initiatives to others.
The Final Dish
The pinnacle of the annual performance review process is the final dish: a review of your accomplishments. All too often we forget to brag about ourselves. How did your hard work pay off? An article written by Forbes, eloquently outlines tactics that may help you talk about your accomplishments without sounding like a braggart. A few of my favorites are:
Emphasize your hard work: A lot of work went into your accomplishments; make sure to highlight the hard work and avoid minimizing what went into an accomplishment.
Give credit where it’s due: People are more receptive to success stories when credit is given where it’s due.
Stick to the facts: Let your work speak for itself; the article states to stick to self-disclosure versus self-praise.
Express gratitude: Expressing a bit of gratitude shows you’re a down to earth person.
No matter how you go about highlighting your accomplishments, make sure you find a way to make them known. Your accomplishments show the value you bring to the organization and the “proof” of your skills. All of this can lead to recognition, career advancement, and an overall positive impression with your manager and other leadership.
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
The Taste Test
In a recent Wilbanks Consulting Group blog post by my colleague, Challie Sherrill, she mentioned interviewers tend to ask tough questions that can lead you to reveal your biggest weakness or when something didn’t go to plan. The ability to clearly talk about what didn’t go well and what you learned means having the self-awareness to discuss the situation, consider why there were setbacks, and articulately explain what lessons the experience has taught you. This ability is important in an annual performance review as well. Honest, self-reflection shows a willingness to learn and grow which is ultimately super valuable to an organization to keep moving forward.
Let’s not forget we can’t do it all on our own, sometimes failures or bumps in the road are unavoidable without the right resources. If you set out in the kitchen to make a bundt cake without a bundt pan, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, the cake isn’t going to be right. An annual performance review is the perfect time to honestly vocalize what resources you need to do your job successfully.
Engage a Career Coach For Annual Performance Reviews and Constructive Dialogues Preparation
Annual performance reviews and ongoing, constructive dialogues within your organization can greatly impact your career satisfaction, motivation, and advancement. There are times in all of our careers where engaging the help of a career coach outside of your organization can greatly help. A career coach can objectively help think through tough decisions, offer advice on regular actions and goals, and be a great sounding board for whatever challenges are coming your way.
I’ve personally witnessed positive transformations from The Wilbanks Consulting Group. The experienced career coaches from all different backgrounds and industries help professionals create and achieve long-term strategies for career growth and satisfaction. Reach out to the Wilbanks Consulting Group to schedule a free 30 minute consultation to discuss preparation for your annual performance reviews and beyond.