Different Strokes for Different Folks - Customizing Performance Reviews for You

For performance reviews to be a valuable part of performance management, they have to mean something to the employee, manager and organization. Relevant measures help people understand expectations and plan accordingly.

But what happens when the expectations set are too vague?

People get frustrated. Vague competencies or goals are like telling an employee to “do better.” Do better than what? Do better how? Sure, there might be some general understanding of what “better” might mean, but without specifics, performance won’t follow.

For example, “do better” for a salesperson could mean win more deals. However, winning deals by, say, discounting the product or service not only reduces profitability, it makes it harder for the firm to maintain the value of the service. Other salespeople can’t sell at the set price if a salesperson is undercutting them. So yes, more deals were closed, but at what cost?

Customizing goals and competencies can make it much easier to encourage the behaviors that lead to improved performance. Using customizing features in your performance review systems makes the process more meaningful for everyone.

Here are three ways you can customize your performance reviews:

1.     Change the language: Your company might have its own lingo, so integrating that into your performance review system will help employees relate what they do each day with the appraisal’s measures. It can be as simple as swapping out “customer” with “patient” for hospital performance management, or you can translate all the competencies and goals into your company’s vocabulary. As you use an internal language to customize your company’s appraisal, make sure it’s still clear what’s being measured.

2.     Define the goals: Using specific goals helps employees stay on track with the company’s strategy. To make goals more meaningful, cascade goals down from the business’s strategy through employees at all levels. Help a line manager see just how his efforts will contribute to the business. Then take it a step further and ask that line manager how else he might contribute. He might have a new way to work with suppliers that you might never have known about. His own professional goals would then change a process or service, delivering even more value to the company.

3.     Ask for clarity: Competencies are often built into performance reviews to help measure employee effectiveness, but did anyone ask the employees if the competencies were clear? Competencies can sometimes become too general when leaders want only a few competencies that many employees can be measured against. “Effective communications” can mean something different to lots of people. In some cases, you’ll either need to add definitions to those competencies, or go ahead and make a few versions of the competency so it’s relevant.

Customizing competencies and goals can add work to the performance management process, but the work will be worthwhile. With specific and relevant measures, it’ll be easier to see how well employees are performing and link that to the performance of the business.

Value The Right Things

When it comes to evaluating employee performance, it's flat out critical to make sure that you're measuring what's really important. This seems so logical, but we'd bet good money we could walk into most organizations and find examples of performance reviews with competencies that are missing from the review and competencies that are a part of the review that have no real relevance to the job in question.

A simple job analysis for each position within the company would be a great start in identifying the duties and skills required to do the job effectively. And keep in mind that identification of the competencies to be measured relate to the job and not the individual. Sometimes, review templates appear to be created around the individual(s) holding the position rather than the job itself.

There are cultural competencies and then there are job duty-specific competencies. When we think about cultural competencies, we think about things like interpersonal relationships, self awareness, team-orientation, etc. while job duty-specific competencies are those that relate directly to completion of the job tasks.....the "technical" skills if you will. This distinction is only made to illustrate the need to focus on both "soft" and "hard" skills and to place emphasis on valuing the right things when evaluating performance.

This all leads up to the question of what your company values when it comes to evaluating performance? Is there an overemphasis on the cultural variables and not enough on the job duty-specific ones? Or are the cultural competencies lacking in the evaluation process? Undervaluing or overlooking competencies that should be measured consistently can lead to problems because improper focus for the employees occurs. They need to clearly understand what they are being measured against relative to the job at hand and relative to the "cultural requirements" of the business.

There are certain competencies that would seem to be important to most jobs if the organization values interpersonal relationships, high levels of cohesiveness, and harmony among employees. When these competencies are missing from reviews there is a strong implication that technical job related skills are paramount to success while building a team-oriented and harmonious culture are not involved in overall success. Without appropriate focus on the cultural variables, various types of conflict often set in and can run rampant.

Some studies have shown that workplace conflict forces managers to spend 30% or more of their time dealing with it and as many as 50% of employees say they get less done while fuming about conflict that can arise. And in an environment where conflict seems more prevalent, more than 35% of employees became less engaged in their work. When employees aren't evaluated against cultural related competencies in a way that makes sense, reduced productivity and engagement can be the result.

Selection of competencies to measure employees against speaks volumes about what an organization values. When you look at the competencies in play in your business, what seems to be valued?

Are You Measuring What Counts?

Employees need to understand what is important for them to focus on in the course of doing their jobs. That is an obvious observation.

But are the selected competencies really the most critical relative to the focus employees will place on them? In other words, will focusing on those competencies help optimize contribution to team and organizational success? Sometimes the competencies selected for measuring performance don't match the most critical elements of the job.

It helps to start with an "inventory" of the critical aspects of the job. What are the most important things involved in doing the job on a daily basis? Starting there helps easily create a list of the most crucial competencies that should be used to build performance review templates used in the review process.

Failing to identify these competencies can lead to a misplaced focus on what is really important. For example, suppose developing relationships with outside parties is a critical part of the job, but that competency shows up nowhere on the review form. The problem with not including it is that even though the employee may know he/she must do this as part of his/her job, they are not being measured against that competency. That sends a message that it may not be as important as it should be.

The point here is that you don't want to take a haphazard approach to selecting competencies. Obviously a number of competencies will cut across many or most jobs. But for some jobs, there are key competencies that the employee must be measured against.

Take a look at your various jobs and make certain the appropriate competencies are being included as part of the review process. The performance of your employees depends on measurement and measuring the proper job elements is a significant contributor to potential success.

Building Your Mission, Values and Goals for the Future Into Your Performance Management System

Performance management is not only about reviewing your employees, it is also an important tool that should be used to communicate your mission, values and goals to your employees and make sure they are being accomplished.

Building these 3 objectives into your review process is a simple task that only requires you to know exactly what your company’s mission, values and goals are. By deciding what core competencies best relate to the company’s strategic plan, you can directly assess your employees on how they are acting out these objectives for the company.

Your employees need to know what they will be accountable for in upholding the company’s mission, values and goals. If they cannot make a connection between these and the performance review process, they are not going to feel the importance of them. By incorporating these objectives into your review appraisals, you are likely to get your employees motivated and thinking about how they can individually help uphold your company’s mission, values and goals.

ReviewSNAP Version 2.0 Has Gone Live!

ReviewSNAP Version 2.0 is now live! Version 2.0 will make your performance management process more simple and streamlined while giving you access to even more robust tools. Below is a partial list of enhancements that come with Version 2.0 and what functions those enhancements offer:

-Import for mass creation of 360 Degree Surveys - In the previous version, you were only able to create 360 degree surveys individually. But this addition will give you the ability to set up an unlimited number of surveys at once.

-Email notifications to employees for goal changes - To better keep employees up to date on their goals, the system will automatically send notifications to them anytime a change has been made to their goals regardless of who made the change.

-Sorting individual competencies - In the prior version, you could only sort the order of the entire competency groups, but this enhancement will allow you to sort the individual competencies as well.

-Quantitative goal tracking - You will be able to create and update quantitative goals while the system calculates and gives you a percentage that will represent progress toward completion of the goal.

-Select sign-off order - Not every organization has the same sign-off order for their review process and currently the default order of the eSignature sign-off is Manager(s), HR staff, and then employee. This adjustment will allow you to resort the sign-off order as necessary to fit your process.

-New review form design - To give our review PDF's a more neutral and formal look, we have redesigned the look of the forms. They will show the same information, but look a bit different.

-Images for eSignatures - This will give you the ability to upload or import images of each employee's signature. The image you upload will show up on any review an employee signs off on.

-Split screen option - Anytime you are doing a performance review or 360 degree survey you will be able to split the screen and pull up any past reviews, self-reviews, 360 degree surveys, journal entries, etc. to view as you are doing the review or 360 degree survey. This will eliminate the need to print anything out or toggle back and forth between different screens.

-Additional statistics dashboard reports - Multiple reports have been added to the statistics dashboard for both performance reviews and 360 degree feedback.

ReviewSNAP to Add Weighted Competencies Option

This is just a quick update to let you know that ReviewSNAP will be adding the ability use weighted competencies within your performance appraisal process. When we initially built the system we wanted to stay away from weighted competencies, but this is another example of ReviewSNAP keeping our ear to the ground and our mind open to make sure and meet the needs of our customers.

When this is launched you will have the option of using weighted or non-weighted competencies. This way you are sure to meet the needs of your current review process. The tentative launch date is July 15th. If there are any changes in the status or launch date we will keep you updated through the ReviewSNAP Blog.