Meeting Employees’ Needs: Culture Management, Engagement, and Preventable Turnover

One of the primary objectives of performance reviews is to ensure that needs are being met—departmental needs, functional needs, organizational needs, and employees’ needs. And there’s the rub. Too often, employees’ needs are overlooked during performance reviews.

Managers focus on other aspects of performance when conducting reviews: whether goals were achieved or not, an employee’s strengths and weaknesses, skill gaps that must be filled, and the like. However, as a recent Harvard Business Review blog post illustrates, it’s a mistake to overlook whether employees’ needs are being met.

In “The Power of Meeting Your Employees’ Needs,” authors Tony Schwartz and Christine Porath reveal the bottom-line benefits of meeting employees’ basic needs, which fall into four categories: 1) renewal (physical); 2) value (emotional); 3) focus (mental); and 4) purpose (spiritual).

Schwartz and Porath write that when any one of these basic needs is being met employees “report a 30% higher capacity to focus, a nearly 50% higher level of engagement, and a 63% greater likelihood to stay at the company.”

(no surprise that #TalentManagement, #EmployeeEngagement, & #Retention are perennial trending topics in HR social media space)

And this positive impact is cumulative, rising with each additional need that gets satisfied. “When all four needs are met, the effect on engagement rises from 50% for one need to 125%.”

The authors conclude: “Rather than trying to forever get more out of their people, companies are far better served by systematically investing in meeting as many of their employees’ core needs as possible, so they’re freed and fueled to bring the best of themselves to work.”

But how do you know what your employees’ needs are? There’s really only one way to be sure. You have to ask them—and the performance review is the perfect time to do so. But this requires managers to engage in a true two-way dialogue with each of their direct reports, not just a one-way discourse on how they’re rating employees. It means being attentive and discussing employees’ needs with respect. It also means managers must be willing to do two key things: first, to give real thought and consideration to what employees are saying; and second, to follow up on these discussions, taking action in a timely manner to get employees’ needs met when appropriate.

Discussing employees’ needs—and what you can do to meet them—not only helps you reap the benefits cited by the authors of the HBR post but it also shows employees that you value them and care about helping them achieve their goals. If you want to create and sustain a high-performance work environment, this kind of open commitment to employees is crucial.

User Experience—the “New Battleground” for HR Solution Providers

When we launched Reviewsnap one of our main objectives was to deliver one of the easiest-to-use performance management solutions in the entire industry. A June 24 article on TLNT.com reminded

us just how important—and how difficult—this objective can be.

In “Tech Insights: The Trick in Making Easy-to-Use User Interfaces,” author David Creelman asks HR professionals the question: If a 5-year-old can master an iPad, why can’t a 45-year-old Director of Operations figure out the performance management software? The answer, he writes, is that “designers of iPad software have been a lot more concerned with the user experience than have the designers of HR tools.”

Sadly, Creelman’s criticism of the state of HR tools isn’t unjustified. Some HR solutions are downright user-unfriendly. The good news is providers know there’s a problem—and they’re doing something about it.

Last October, HR industry analyst, Josh Bersin, wrote an article for Forbes titled, “The 9 Hottest Trends In HR Technology ... And Many Are Disruptive.” In it, he states that vendors “are focused on building ‘systems of engagement’ rather than ‘systems of record.’ This is not only focused on making software easier to learn: it’s focused on making it possible for employees to use these systems themselves, effectively freeing up hundreds of HR staffers who do administrative work.”

This article shows that providers are indeed working to raise the bar on the user experience. It also shows that companies are shifting to cloud-based HR solutions, in large part, to gain an improved user experience; according to Bersin, 40 percent of companies that want to replace or revamp their HR infrastructure want cloud-based systems. We’ve even seen evidence in the marketplace that non-cloud solutions are being redesigned to mimic the simplicity and intuitiveness of SaaS alternatives.

As Bersin notes, user experience is the “new battleground.” It’s where designers of HR tools are now waging their competitive wars. At Reviewsnap, we know firsthand how challenging it can be to create a user interface that actually is easy-to-use. Every organization has a unique set of needs and goals, along with a different definition of “easy to use.” This is precisely why we built our solution with the simplest possible interface—and why we made it so flexible and easy to tailor. If you read our case studies and testimonials, you’ll see that nearly every one of our clients describe our solution with terms such as “user-friendly,” “easy to understand” and “easy to navigate.” We’re proud of these endorsements. But we know we have to earn them again and again, day in and day out.

User experience isn’t a one-and-done deal—and this is where we believe many solutions providers stumble.

Easy-to-use interfaces are only part of the total user experience. Implementation, customization, ongoing support and a host of other elements make up the user experience. Prior to and during implementation, for example, providers must conduct ample due diligence, making certain their solutions will function exactly the way clients need them to. And after the solution is up and running, the due diligence should continue. Weeks or even months down the road, the client’s definition of “ease of use” may have shifted slightly or morphed into something else entirely based on changing needs or market conditions. In other words, ease-of-use can become a moving target.

Creating a simple user interface and a great user experience is tricky stuff. But it’s absolutely essential for business tools, especially those designed to serve today’s busy, often overburdened HR departments. In our experience, we’ve found that communication and collaboration with clients—both before and after a purchase has been made—are the secrets to delivering on the ease-of-use promise.

Do You Know Who Your "Top Guns" Are?

Not long ago, the TLNT website posted an article titled, “Just What Really Is ‘Top Talent,’ Anyway?” As the author, Crystal Spraggins, noted, the answer to that question is somewhat subjective and depends on an organization’s particular needs, leadership and culture.

“To a larger degree, however, the answer isn’t subjective at all,” Spraggins wrote. “When top talent is in action, most of us have no trouble recognizing it.” She then went on to offer a list of characteristics shared by the top talent she has encountered. Her list includes commitment, creativity, curiosity and emotional maturity, among others.

What’s striking about Spraggins’ topic is how few employers actually bother to define what “top talent” means to them. You think it would be common practice, especially given the fact talent issues are among the most urgent for our nation’s employers. Last year, TLNT itself published research showing that HR professionals’ top three concerns are: 1) engaging and retaining employees, 2) developing leaders and managing skills gaps, and 3) recruiting the best employees.

A big part of solving all of these talent issues is knowing precisely who your top talent is and what sets them apart. Once you have clarity on these matters, you know what to look for when recruiting new talent and developing current employees.

Performance reviews are among the most effective tools we have for identifying our top performers—and for nurturing and reinforcing the qualities that make these individuals so valuable. But, as Spraggins points out in her article, there’s a certain dgree of subjectivity in identifying top performers. For instance, some managers will value particular behaviors and characteristics more highly than their peers. Employers who want to gain greater clarity regarding their top talent—and then hire more individuals like them—will want to strip away some of this subjectivity, perhaps by establishing companywide consensus on a handful of indispensable qualities that are consistent across the organization’s top talent.

Clearly, this isn’t a shoot-from-the-hip initiative. It takes the combined effort and active support of senior leadership, hiring mangers and front-line supervisors. And it requires HR to drive it—gaining buy-in from all of the stakeholders and then leading the process until it becomes engrained in the organization and its talent management practices.

But the work required to instill a process like this is a small price to pay, especially if it helps our organizations evolve from the outdated, shotgun approach of simply attracting job candidates to actually engaging and winning top talent.

Compensation Reigns as the King of Job Satisfaction

According to a new SHRM research report, Job Satisfaction and Engagement: The Road to Economic Recovery, employees are citing pay as the top contributor to their overall job satisfaction.

The report flies in the face of a body of research that claims compensation isn’t a significant contributor to job satisfaction. SHRM says that 60 percent of surveyed employees rated compensation/pay as “very important,” while another 36 percent rated it “important.” Just two years

ago, compensation was ranked third among contributors to job satisfaction, eclipsed by job security and opportunities to use skills/abilities.

What’s behind the change? A SHRM representative chalked it up to the recession and the slow growth of incomes over the past several years.

Whatever the reason and whatever its rank, compensation is certainly an essential component of job satisfaction. When employees understand how their achievements are valued and rewarded, their motivation and engagement levels improve. This means it behooves us to continually reinforce their understanding and knowledge of our compensation programs. In fact, we should do more than simply educate employees about our compensation programs: we should take steps to make them active participants in these programs.

For example, employees should be responsible for entering and updating their personal information in our HR systems. Naturally, this would require a bit of training and a system that’s extremely user-friendly—but it’s a small price to pay for raising employee satisfaction, motivation and engagement levels.

The right HR information system/software also offers an array of benefits to our organizations:

·      They streamline the administrative tasks related to compensation management.

·      They improve legal compliance and minimize the risk of errors.

·      They diminish manager bias and improve fairness.

·      They help us collect and maintain more accurate people data, which leads to better decision making.

·      And they enhance our ability to share this data easily with functional heads and senior leaders.

Given the findings of the SHRM report, it’s probably a good time to revisit our compensation programs, practices and systems. It could pay big dividends.

Goal Setting Works. But Avoid Those Goals Gone Wild.

Helping employees set achievable performance goals delivers substantial benefits.

Goal setting helps employees prioritize their work and focus their day-to-day efforts effectively. It lets them know exactly what they’ll be measured on (in part) during performance reviews. It can facilitate their communication and interaction with managers. And it shows them how important their personal contributions are to department, functional and overall company targets. In short, it’s astounding how much impact goal setting can have on our bottom line and competitive strength.

Done well, goal setting also is a tremendous tool for motivating our people and fostering greater levels of engagement—especially when managers and employees create goals together and work collaboratively to set expectations.

The Human Resources function at MIT does a great job of reminding us how this is possible. The Performance Development page of its website not only instructs readers on the basics of goal setting but it also shows how to tie goal setting to employee development plans.

One of the truly insightful things MIT offers is a set of best practices for bolstering basic goal-setting strategies. These best practices include (and we’re paraphrasing):

·      Ensure there is alignment among an individual’s goals, her/his actual job responsibilities and the department’s targets. (You’d be surprised how easily these components can slip out of alignment without ongoing attention.)

·      Consider an employee’s needs—not just the department’s needs—when setting goals.

·      Communicate department goals to the entire group as a whole, not just individuals. This helps foster clarity and cohesion among the team.

·      Incorporate special projects, committee assignments and mentoring relationships into goal setting.

·      Once achieved, use goals as stepping-stones to new goals and assignments.

While some of these practices might seem rudimentary to more sophisticated organizations, many small to medium employers will benefit significantly from these suggestions.

Interestingly, there have been a few studies showing how poor and/or overblown goal setting can actually be dangerous. A few years ago, Forbes published an article featuring a report by Wharton operations and a team of researchers titled, “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting.” Essentially, the bulk of the research showed that “overly ambitious targets” have profoundly negative consequences. Just goes to show you that too much of anything—even a good thing—can be bad.

Bottom line, help your employees set limited, realistic goals … and be sure to avoid those nasty goals gone wild.

Heed These 5 Performance Management Realities—Before It’s Too Late!

Previously, we wrote about the pressing need to solve the performance management puzzle that baffles so many of our organizations.

As we noted in that post, Deloitte’s 2013 Human Capital Trends report addresses the issue in a section called, “The Performance Management Puzzle,” which offers a number of insights into exactly what’s vexing most employers (changing performance pressures, stagnating measurement and evaluation processes, evolving but unproven technologies, and the quality of the training and tools given to managers, to name just a few).

To “solve” performance management, we not only need to address each piece of the puzzle but we also must come to terms with a new set of realities. Progressive employers have already begun to accept these truths but many more employers need to follow suit if they want to keep top talent from slipping away.

Here are five of the most critical new realities that, once embraced, will help us all solve the performance management puzzle:

1.     The traditional performance management model has always been broken for many employers. This is compellingly illustrated in the Deloitte report: “Many companies continue to rely on traditional performance management processes .... Year after year, managers follow a well-worn routine: Fill out goal forms, track progress, fill out more forms, conduct a formal annual assessment, and then fill out more forms.” Indeed, this is the approach some employers have taken from the start but it was never what the traditional model of performance management intended. Annual reviews were meant to be more substantive than the rote formula of “fill out forms, track, assess, then repeat.” This formula is no way to motivate and engage people. As the Deloitte report’s authors point out, “Creating tight alignment between the work of the individual and the organization’s objectives promotes greater context, commitment, and pride in accomplishment.” This tight alignment and the intended outcomes have always been part of the traditional performance management model. But they demand a high level of interaction, communication and collaboration between managers and their direct reports—higher than many are providing—no matter what “model” you use.

2.     Annual reviews aren’t enough. No matter what performance management model you use, our businesses and our people move too quickly these days for annual reviews to serve them well. Performance goals and targets (for both individuals and teams) are now linked to shorter-term projects and other strategic deadlines as opposed to the fiscal year. Therefore, our people need more immediate, frequent and ongoing feedback. As a result, a growing number of employers are supplementing their annual reviews with more frequent, informal meetings. Managers and direct reports get together more often to discuss goals, track progress and strategize on performance adjustments when necessary. Many still hold annual reviews but these meetings are used primarily to address development and career pathing issues—and to discuss compensation (annual pay raises, bonuses, etc.). Bottom line, meeting only once a year to discuss performance is a dying practice.

3.     Technology is compulsory. No matter what a company’s review process is, technology-based solutions are a necessary component of a successful performance management process—especially when you factor in the tight timeframes many managers are dealing with and the widespread push to base reviews on metrics and hard data. Dedicated performance management software and systems help to keep the review process, managers and employees on track and working as efficiently as possible.

4.    Companies need to work from the bottom up to keep employees engaged. Companies should have employees either help with or initiate the review processes and be an active participant in establishing some of their performance goals and targets. This goes a long way toward keeping people engaged in their work. If your organization uses a top-down approach—placing accountability only on your managers—employees have precious little incentive to take ownership of their goals or become involved in their own development.

5.     We can’t look at the box for a “completed picture” of the performance management puzzle. There are no blueprints or reference materials because performance management isn’t a cookie-cutter issue. Yes, we’re all shooting for the same result—to fairly evaluate, compensate and motivate employee performance. But the puzzle pieces that fit together and work effectively will be somewhat unique to our organizations. Some will be served well by social tools, some won’t (at least not yet). Some will find great value in “crowdsourced” reviews, others will encounter problems. And so on, and so on, with each component. If you’d like some guidance on your particular challenges and options, Reviewsnap is just one of several highly respected performance management companies that will be happy to discuss solutions that might suit your company’s needs.

At it’s core, performance management is about helping your people deliver their best day in and day out. It’s about employee development. Organizations that treat annual reviews as a mere formality are simply going to lose out—and lose talent—to those that focus on improving engagement through the review process.

We’d love to know what your experiences have been and the lessons your organization has learned in addressing its performance management challenges.

Share your stories here on our blog or email us at info@reviewsnap.com and we’ll compile them for a future post or report.

Is Your 360° Feedback a Few Degrees Short?

For many companies, the answer to this question is a resounding, “Yes!”

The reason—their employees aren’t conducting self-reviews.

If this is the case at your company, your “comprehensive” feedback is not only incomplete but

it’s also causing you to miss out on a golden opportunity—the opportunity to drive truly targeted performance improvements, to raise employee engagement levels and to manage your talent more effectively.

Properly instituted and utilized, self-reviews impart all of these benefits to employers by helping them facilitate open communication between managers and direct reports; by encouraging personal growth in individuals at every level of the organization; and by making performance management a responsibility that managers and employees share.

Additionally, self-reviews help employers:

·      better understand how employees “see” their performance and the contributions they’re making;

·      address critical gaps between employee perception and reality;

·      and determine whether performance goals are being communicated and understood clearly.

Employees themselves also benefit from self-reviews in a number of ways. For example, employees gain a greater sense of control over how they’re being judged and evaluated when they conduct self-reviews. This translates into greater satisfaction and commitment. Self-reviews also give employees the opportunity to:

·      engage in a constructive dialogue with their managers in a setting that’s devoted entirely to them (as opposed to team and departmental meetings where performance may be discussed);

·      highlight their significant achievements and how they’ve addressed past performance issues;

·      ask for support, education or training to address skill gaps and weaknesses;

·      and think/talk about their performance in a larger context (i.e., how they’re helping to achieve the goals of their teams, departments, functional areas and the organization at large).

Bottom line, all of this adds up to more engaged employees. And, as a growing body of research has shown, organizations that have high employee engagement are more profitable, more productive and enjoy greater customer loyalty.

So here are a few suggestions that can help your company make better use of self-reviews and reap the considerable rewards:

Have employees begin their annual reviews with self-reviews. This is a clear demonstration of your respect for employees and your interest in hearing what they think about their performance. Instead of feeling like a one-way critique, your performance reviews will take on the characteristics of a two-way exchange of ideas and information. And you’ll be able to address gaps in perceptions and expectations more proactively.

Encourage employees to focus on the aspects of their performance that are most important to them. Again, this gives you the opportunity to make sure there is agreement between what employees consider important and what management considers important. As a result, fewer disputes are likely to arise and differences of opinion can be discussed more easily.

Use self-reviews as a reason to hold more frequent (and less formal) performance appraisals. We’re always encouraging clients not to get stuck in the annual review cycle. Companies that hold reviews and performance-related discussions more often can make small, steady adjustments to performance and resolve problems before they become epidemic. Employees are far more open to small “course corrections” in their performance, and they won’t feel blindsided by negative feedback as they might if you wait an entire year to critique their work.

Have employees get personally involved in creating their own performance goals. Don’t just hand your employees their performance goals. Make them your partners in goal-setting and creating performance targets. Employees who have a direct hand in these activities embrace their goals and take ownership of their performance to a greater degree. It’s another way to build up their engagement—and to build a workforce that will give you a true competitive edge.

For other ideas on transforming your performance review process, download our white paper, “From Dread to Moving Ahead: Taking the Pain Out of Performance Management,” available here.

Don’t Be One of Those Managers!

A common mistake is to deliver a performance review and then kick back and wait until the next review period before providing substantive feedback. It’s important that you avoid being one of those managers.

A more effective approach is to follow up after the review and then on an ongoing basis.  One of the

important elements of performance management is ongoing communication and feedback to and from employees.

Follow up is important because it allows for reinforcement of important points made during the review and it allows the employee to provide input in terms of either how he or she is working to modify work behavior to improve performance or meet goals or how he or she may be struggling to improve performance. As a manager, you want to hear from the employee and you want to be able to coach as needed including reinforcement of key points made through the review process.

If the employee has shown improvement or continues to do well, you’ll want to recognize and convey that to the employee. This reinforcement of positives often breeds more positive work behavior.  If the employee is continuing to struggle or is exhibiting negative behavior after the review, the follow up session should be used to address the need to be positive and focus on working to improve performance. 

We know that effective communication with employees before during and after formal performance reviews enhances overall performance. The key is to develop an ongoing communication platform with your employees so that you and they become comfortable sharing positive outcomes, concerns, and ideas with one another. When feedback, formal or informal, is done infrequently a communication void can develop and open two-way feedback tends to lag as a result.

After the next review you perform, follow up with the employee within several weeks to discuss how things are going. Without rehashing the review, reinforce the two or three most important points from the review if you aren’t seeing positive changes in work behavior and let the employee talk openly about any frustrations or any steps taken since the review to address deficiencies or progress toward goal achievement. Coach as appropriate and then make a point of talking to the employee periodically to do a check on progress.

Let Employees Learn When and Where They Want To

Despite the plethora of mobile apps for this, and the dizzying array of cloud-based solutions for that, when it comes to how businesses offer learning to employees, most organizations still rely primarily on

classroom-based workshops.

It’s ironic when you consider that businesses continue to face tight and uncertain budgets; more and more of today’s workforce is choosing to work remotely; the trend toward mobile computing just keeps growing; and the generational makeup of the workforce is getting more complex.

Consider just these two statistics:

·       By next year, millennials — people born between 1977 and 1997 — will comprise more than one-third of the global workforce.

·       There’s recently been a two-fold increase in the prevalence of mobile tools for learning, according to Aberdeen Research.

As Aberdeen puts it, mobile is no longer a “nice to have” for learning programs but a strategic part of any comprehensive learning plan. Bearing all of that in mind, you’d think companies would be on alternative learning methods like white on rice.

Some are. In fact, companies that want to succeed in driving employee development will embrace flexible training alternatives.

Research by futurethink Innovation Institute in 2009 found that almost 62 percent of companies believed that successful learning programs would need to include e-learning options. A whopping 85 percent agreed that most learning going forward would be collaborative. And every company in the study agreed or agreed strongly that learning was going to be done in short time frames, using “micro-modules” for more-focused learning and better results.

That’s some of what flexible learning looks like. At least from the employee’s perspective. For the learning and development leader, it all hinges on — or at least is substantially enhanced by — a new evolution of learning technology. For example, e-learning, collaborative learning, and the implementation of micro-modules have a greater chance of success if they’re supported by automated content-integration solutions.

These operate behind the curtain between the employee and the learning and development leader. They help leverage the full power of the new trend in flexible learning.

Reviewsnap’s automated Learning Content Integration (LCI) module is one example. It lets learning and development leaders extend information gathered from an employee’s performance reviews to automatically develop targeted learning plans for that person.

Some of the ways Reviewsnap’s LCI module makes it easier to consider expanding your learning formats include:

·       Enabling learning leaders to automatically create development goals and recommend specific learning activities based on an employee’s performance appraisal ratings.

·       Allowing employees to easily access a full external learning curriculum, in addition to their company’s custom training and learning content.

·       Providing online access to a full learning management system (LMS).

·       Providing real-time access to reporting analytics and transcripts of learning activities.

In a nutshell, Reviewsnap’s LCI improves talent management by integrating learning activities and performance management. It’s another way business is changing how it manages employee development.

Piece by Piece: Performance Reviews Amid the Changing Nature of Manufacturing

The recent economic recession and the always-competitive pressures in global manufacturing continue to push companies to pay closer attention to the evolving nature of performance and the practices and benchmarks they use to assess and measure performance.

This isn’t a simple case of implementing a standard performance review, though. Manufacturing, by its very nature, has specific challenges and considerations when going through the performance review process.

·       Smarter manufacturing systems create a more sophisticated workforce. While an organization previously rated a riveter or machinist based on their speed and technical ability, they now rate on the ability to run complex machinery and anticipate problems.

·       Lean manufacturing processes have changed priorities in many manufacturing organizations. Working on problems happens in offices, not on shop floors, and being consistent and on budget is essential.

·       The changing competencies of the modern manufacturing employee mean that performance is now a moving target for managers to approach with care and consideration.

In a meta-analysis of studies on manufacturing performance measures, the authors found that modern performance management in manufacturing takes into account factors such as meeting the needs specific to manufacturing and making sure goals are simple to understand while focusing on long-term results, as well as accurately articulating business strategy and results.

How can manufacturing organizations accomplish this in their own business?

Incorporate change into the performance evaluation process. With changes in manufacturing processes, new technologies being introduced, and the global nature of the industry, the ability for employees to evolve is as important as ever. The ability to change and learn should be something that every manufacturing organization is measuring and setting goals around.

Align manufacturing goals with individual performance. With lean protocols in place, every person who touches the manufacturing process is important to the success of the entire operation. Employees’ performance should be in tight alignment with the entire manufacturing process, factoring in individual contributions and their impact on the system.

Measure what is necessary rather than what is easy. In a manufacturing environment, what is important to the organization may not always be what is easiest to measure. While speed and quality of work may seem most important, factors like teamwork and flexibility in tasks may actually be more important and impactful to the bottom line.

While manufacturing may be shifting and changing, effective performance management should be able to meet these challenges head on. Following these best practices can help managers focus their efforts to meet the specific issues manufacturing organizations face on a daily basis.

Midyear Checkup: Looking Back, Thinking Ahead

We can hear you already: Annual performance reviews are such a pain in the neck, why would I want to double the agony by doing them at midyear, too?

Bear with us. The benefits outweigh your fears.

The midyear mark is a good time to check on employees’ progress toward their performance goals. It’s a good

time to make sure development plans are on track — and make adjustments if they’re not. Finally, midyear is the right time to assess and revise goals for the rest of the year.

In a nutshell: Midyear is the perfect time for employees and managers to combine their discussions and plans around goal-setting and appraisals.

In addition, consider these other important reasons for midyear performance reviews, from respected HR veteran Victor Lipman:

1. They force managers to give meaningful feedback. Meaningful feedback between managers and their reports is assumed to be an ongoing practice. But it’s easily lost in the ebb and flow of daily work. A formal midyear performance assessment increases the odds of timely attention to key issues.

2. They require managers and their subordinates to confront difficult issues they both might otherwise ignore. Lipman call this the “unpleasant cousin” of point No. 1. A prescribed midyear appraisal mechanism makes it less likely that conflicts will be avoided until it’s too late to effectively deal with them.

3. They make year-end evaluations easier. Comprehensive and well-organized midyear performance reviews create a blueprint for what lies ahead. Hopefully, key strengths and weaknesses will be aired and discussed, and end-of-year surprises will at least be minimized.

4. They can improve employee engagement. People want to know how they’re doing. If done candidly, fairly, and constructively, midyear evaluations offer meaningful feedback and help employees make course corrections by the year’s end.

Now that you’re at least considering adding midyear performance reviews to your lineup, what steps should you take? First, realize that HR leaders, team managers, and employees all benefit from a system that creates an automated, user-friendly performance review process. Reviewsnap is one of those systems.

Reviewsnap prevents the midyear review process from being a headache because it streamlines and automates the entire process. The same features that do that, which include automated self-reviews, ease employees’ anxiety about their upcoming reviews. The process actively involves employees and boosts employee engagement.

For HR managers, midyear reviews handled with a Web-based, automated solution like Reviewsnap afford customized performance reviews that truly align with organizational goals. They provide an opportunity at midyear to assess and possibly reset company and department goals, and track progress toward those objectives.

Midyear performance reviews — you owe it to your organization to consider them.