Review Actual Performance

Review actual performance against agreed upon objectives, goals and standards.

Throughout the performance cycle, employees have been managing their own performance, from setting and monitoring performance and development objectives, to regularly reviewing progress with you. Consequently, review discussions should hold no surprises. This session should simply summarise past discussions, while the major focus is on continued development and future success.

It is important that the atmosphere in performance review meetings is positive and that both parties treat each other as equals. Make the other party feel at ease.

Remember that they are entering this meeting with feelings of uneasiness, fear, trepidation and even hostility.

The manager/supervisor’s role in this meeting is to ensure that the organisation’s performance requirements will be achieved through the actions of the individual staff members they manage. This means the outputs identified as the business plan, and team/department plan, will be achieved through the aggregated individual performance of staff.

Click here to view a video that explains the demonstration of employee performance evaluation.

The formal performance review has three purposes:

• To review the performance of the staff member,
• To review the performance of the manager in supporting the staff member (upward feedback), and
• To evaluate the progress on a learning and development plan for the staff member.

Before the Review

• Decide what rating you think should be awarded to the staff member and write down evidence to support this view. Make sure this rating can be justified in terms of the ratings you have given in the previous formal reviews (no-surprise principle).
• Think about how well you have performed in supporting the work of your staff member. Write down some specific examples of strong support and ideas about how to improve performance.
• Think about the job performance of the staff member over the past six months/year. What does this tell you about the things they are good at and the things they are not so good at. Does it point to any areas in which they need development?
• Consider each of the staff member’s performance results and think about additional skills they might need to successfully achieve these. Write them down and suggest them at the review meeting.

During the Review

• The staff member may be very anxious about this meeting, so do not do anything to aggravate the situation (being flippant, too intense, late for the meeting and so on).
• To break the ice and get the staff member at ease you could offer them something to drink, ask about their personal life (family, hobbies, etc.) or ask them how they are doing lately.
• Begin the performance review by setting the context - provide an overview of the department and organisation’s overall performance.
• Review the performance agreement by looking at Key Result Areas. Ask the staff member to tell you how they feel they have performed over the past six months / year, without going into too many details.
• Start the formal review by focussing on the performance objectives related to each KRA one-by-one.
• Ask the staff member to explain what rating they think they deserve for every KRA respectively and let them give reasons for this rating. Support them where you feel they are right and give examples of your own.
• If you think they have rated themselves too high or too low, tell them. Provide specific examples and give them plenty of opportunity to question your judgement and provide their own supporting evidence.
• Receiving feedback can be threatening to people. Do not become aggressive or defensive at the meeting. It this becomes to happen call ‘time out’.
• Stick to the facts. Do not let personality differences get in the way of a productive meeting.
• Make sure you devote adequate time to discussing the learning and development action plan with the staff member. This meeting is not only a performance review.
• If there is a disagreement that you cannot resolve easily, follow the process established for reaching agreement.
• If you still cannot reach agreement, you may need to resort to the formal dispute resolution process.

Click here to view a video that explains how to ace your performance review.