7 Ways to Improve Your Performance Review Process

Money is one reason the annual review is dreaded, notes Alan C. Fox, the president of ACF Property Management, Inc., and the author of PEOPLE TOOLS: 54 Strategies for Building Relationships, Creating Joy, and Embracing Prosperity. A second reason is that the employer needs to give the employee “constructive” criticism.

“But why should we think of the review as being about the employee?”, asks Fox. Don’t both the employee and employer want the best possible performance? Perhaps underperforming employees lack the proper tools, training, or appreciation—all of which are the responsibility of the employer, not of the employee.

“I now regard the (not dreaded) annual review as a review of my own performance, not theirs,” says Fox. “I think of my employees as coworkers. We work in the same building, write e-mails to outsiders and to each other, talk on the telephone, and enjoy lunch in the early afternoon. Every one of us is a crew member on the same ship, headed in the same direction.”

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Here are Fox’s 7 suggestions for improving the annual review process.

1. Keep coworkers up to date on how they are doing during the year. Think of yourself as a coach, offering suggestions and encouragement during the game. Offer approval to encourage your employees, and suggest course corrections to help them focus on what needs to be changed. When your flight lands in San Francisco, it’s too late to remember that you should have boarded the flight for Chicago.

“In the old days I would say to an employee after his or her first day on the job, ‘I’ve decided to renew your option. You can come back tomorrow,’” Fox says. “I cringe at the thought of how I would feel if my new boss of 1 day said that to me.” Recently, Fox hired someone to help with the marketing and promotion of People Tools. At the end of the first week he asked, “Are all of us providing proper information and support so that you can do your best work?” If you have properly helped your coworkers during the year there will be no bad surprises for either of you at the annual review, Fox notes.

2. When it’s time for the annual review, make sure to conduct it within a week or two of the anniversary date. It’s not fair to your coworkers to delay information that is important to them and keep them walking on eggshells, waiting for “the knife to drop.”

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3. Ask each person being reviewed to evaluate himself or herself. Ask them to write down their accomplishments of the past year and goals for the coming year. Not only does this help your employees learn the valuable skill of self-assessment, it also shows how much you respect and appreciate their opinions.
4. Ask the reviewees what salary they think they deserve. I use their recommendation as a guide. “Years ago an employee, who worked with me for almost 25 years, always asked for a 10 or 15 percent raise, which was far too high. But at least I knew what she was thinking,” Fox says.

“One year my vice president/general manager, asked for a raise which was far too small. I increased her salary by three times the amount she had requested.”

Tomorrow, the rest of Fox’s list of annual review success strategies, plus an introduction to the timely webinar, Merit Increases: How to Accurately Budget for Performance-Based Salary Increases.

This article is adapted with permission from the publisher, SelectBooks, from PEOPLE TOOLS FOR BUSINESS: 50 Strategies for Building Success, Creating Wealth, and Finding Happiness by Alan C. Fox. Copyright 2014.