Performance Reviews: Party, Parting, or Feedback?

I just completed my second annual performance review at my Company. Some performance reviews are just a party to talk about the great things that an employee has done during the year so that he or she can get a raise. Some performance reviews are done to document trouble and part ways with an employee. Managers should give specific, positive or negative, feedback as events occur. But, the reality is that feedback does not occur as often as it should, thus the need for a process to help with those conversations.

I've spent the last two years creating and implementing a performance review process at my Company. I've created, observed and participated in too many reviews to count. Here are 5 tips for making performance reviews more effective.

1. You get what you measure. One year my recruiting goal was based upon "selection tests completed" instead of what really mattered, hires, because my department did not make the actual hiring decision. (I disagree with this thinking, but that's for another post!) We knew the hiring ratios, so the thought was that if this many candidates took the test, we would hire this many people. I designed a recruiting strategy to meet the tests taken objective and it was no surprised that we killed the number. But, what wasn't taken into consideration was that source of hire impacts the hiring ratios. We didn't meet the business objective - hires- but I did meet the objective on my performance evaluation. I didn't agree with that, but my manager did so I had to go with it if I wanted a positive evaluation. You get what you measure, so make sure that your performance objectives are designed to impact your business. Paul shared another great example of getting what you measure in his "Tobacco, Taxes and Unintended Consequences" on his blog, Incetive Intelligence.

2. Allow for flexibility. Managers and employees should work together to make sure that the measurements will impact the business. This includes changing performance measures if your business changes. I once had a project as a goal on my performance review. The project was cancelled and my manager gave me a "does not meet expectations" rating on this goal. I was more than a little unhappy. The goal was no longer meaningful to the organization and needed to be changed. But, the manager did not believe that she could change the goal midway through the year due to "HR policies". (Yes, we were in HR.) She should have changed the goal to make sure that my activities and projects were impacting the business. It was a wasted opportunity to make an impact on the organization and made me, the overachieving worker, very unhappy.

3. Know the purpose. Is the purpose of your performance measures and evaluation to impact the business, provide performance feedback, document problems/issues, or justify raises? I do not believe that annual performance evaluations are the best time to justify raises because managers want to give everyone a raise. Managers know a lot about their employees personal life - cost of living increases every year, the holiday season, benefit costs increased, the spouse just lost their job, etc... All of these are great reasons to want to give your employees more money. It's also why the feedback may be softened to allow for an employee to maximize a pay increase. If you take the performanced-based incentives out of the feedback process, the outcome should be improved goals and feedback. The annual review should be included in the performance-based incentive process, but is not the only consideration for a raise.

4. Managers: Own the Process. A performance review is not a HR process, it's a management tool to improve an individual, team, department, and the Company. Managers get what they put into it - if you provide little to no feedback in the comments section, your employees will think that you are going through the motions and will not value the feedback that you do give. This is a great time to talk to your employees about career goals, development, and obtain feedback from your employees about what you, as the manager, can do to help them achieve their goals.

5. Employees: Own the Process. This is my favorite tip because it's the one that I have control over. I consider my annual performance review a time for me to highlight the awesome things that I have done to improve the business. Yes, I actively participate in the process - from establishing goals to completing a self-assessment. It's not easy for a manager to remember all of the things that I have done over the past year, but you bet that I remember! I ask for feedback from my manager at least once a month so that there are no surprises during my written review. I look at the feedback and accomplishments and update my resume. I remove a few accomplishments from several jobs ago that I don't remember very well and add my new accomplishments to my current position. This is just good career management and should be done annually.

What is your experience with performance reviews: Party, parting, or meaningful feedback?

Thanksgiving and the Gift of Time

I'm in deep negotiations with my husband about taking a trip to Disney World in early December. We both have time off work available that we need to use before the end of the year. I think that this is an opportunity to experience Disney decorated for the holidays with our kids (ages 4 and 6) in an off-season. My husband is worried about the economy and recession and said that we should be saving our money. We've done a great job of cutting back and saving money this year, so money isn't really a huge issue. My argument is that we have the gift of time and we may not have this opportunity again.

Time is a gift that we will never get back. A recent Forbes.com article says that, like me, women want time for the holidays, not another scarf. It's easy to complain about not having enough time, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the gift of time that I have been given this year.

• Employers offer paid time off as a benefit to employees to spend time away from the office. I convinced my boss to allow me (and other employees) the option of reduced pay and hours over the summer. I worked 4 days a week and had every Friday off during the summer. I spent every Friday with my kids going on "field trips". Because I didn't use my days off over the summer, I now I have time available to spend with my family over the holidays - what a gift!
• Offering flex time to employees is another gift of time. I work 7ish to 4ish daily so that I can pick up my kids from school at a reasonable hour. I'm also able to help with homework, run a quick errand and coach soccer thanks to flex time - what a gift!
• Volunteering shares the gift of your time. There really is nothing more valuable than your time and positively impacting others by your involvement. I am an active volunteer with our local SHRM chapter, GCHRA, on the Recruiting & Staffing Committee. I have help the organization, but really I receive much more than I give. The people that I have met and experiences have changed my personal and professional life- what a gift!
• The time to learn is a gift. I am a huge advocate for continued learning and development. Part of my job the last year has been to learn about social media for my Company. I started reading blogs and using twitter and then started my own blog - what an amazing opportunity!

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, what are you thankful for? How have you used your gift of time this year? My Thanksgiving shout out has to go to my Company, Phoenix Formations, for the gift of time that I have received as an employee. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!

HRevolution: We are the Future of HR

Last weekend, I attended HRevolution with 49 of my closest virtual friends. This was a unconference and was unlike any that I have ever attended. I was more than little nervous when there was no agenda, timeline, or "official" communication about the conference, just an email about a tweet up at 7 pm on Friday and the conference from 8-5 on Saturday. It went against everything that I was taught in college and had done as a practitioner in my career.

I pretty quickly got past my controlling, scheduling, planning and borderline OCD personality quirks (can you say Happy Hour?) and was able to enjoy myself and meet my virtual friends. The conference sessions were great, actually seeing the online conversations about HR is not dead, The Future of HR and Transactional vs. Transformational HR come to life with passionate voices.

Like many others who attended, I left feeling like something was missing - action steps about what I was going to add, change or stop doing because of this event. I blamed this on my formal training background again, but was glad to see so many posts saying the same thing (here, here and here to share just a few).

After a 2 hour ride home with @PeninaSachs and a few days to ponder, I think that my biggest take away is that We are the future of HR.

• The HR that we are practicing is not dead - there will always be a need for people who transform organizations.
• The HR that we are practicing can be transactional and transformation because it is based upon business need. We realize that we must limit transactional duties so that we can work on transformational initiatives, but the basic HR functions need to be done right the first time in order to establish credibility with your stakeholders.
• The HR that we are practicing is evolving and includes social media and technology. Why? Because it connects people to people and we need to understand the tool before we can leverage it for our business.

I've tried to keep in close contact with people in HR (and recruiting) who are, like me, different than the HR stereotype because I haven't met very many of them. We share ideas, resources, struggles, successes and a much deserved drink every now and then. Thanks to HRevolution, I have doubled my network of forward-thinking, passionate HR professionals and look forward to the conversations that will continue to push our industry forward.

Managing Your Career

When I was in graduate school, we were required to read a book called "We Are All Self-Employed" by Cliff Hakim. The premise of the book is that organizations have changed to compete in the global marketplace. Also changing are the the skills, backgrounds and experiences of the workers in the organization. Thus, the traditional employer-employee relationship has changed forever.

Hakim suggests that individuals should take a "self-employed" approach and take control of, or self-manage, their career. This self-managing concept has stuck with me throughout the 10 years since I've read the book. Why? Because it's about control and ownership. You cannot control the organization or the economy or your manager, you can only control yourself. If you don't take ownership of your career and improve yourself, who will? No one. Once you take ownership of your performance and development, you will quickly realize that your business improves when you improve yourself. You will discover new ideas, develop new skills or get answers to your questions, which benefit you in your current and future positions.

It is important to realize that professional development takes many shapes and forms. It's not just the industry conference that you have budgeted to attend each year, but also includes:

• Reading magazines, books and blogs
• Connecting with other professionals
• Sharing ideas, information and resources
• Investigating new tools and technologies
• Training programs - corporate and university
• Job shadowing
• On-the-job training
• Mentoring (or having a mentor)

You are probably thinking that your professional development plan is never going to get past your strict accounting and budgeting guidelines, but the reality is that many of these ideas are no cost or low cost to the organization. I attend many local networking events and a HR roundtable event for free. If you don't have free local resources, work with your local SHRM chapter to create them. Connecting and sharing, especially through social media, is usually free. If there is a cost, consider shelling out the cash yourself to attend special events.

I am attending (and am really excited about) HRevolution this weekend at my expense. I am investing in my personal and professional interest - blogging - and would not expect my employer to pay for the conference. Because this is part of my self-managed career, I'll pay closer attention, make more meaningful professional connections, investigate new technologies to help me in my job and learn about new blogs - ultimately making me a better HR pro for my Company.