You’ve waited until the last possible second to send your employee the self-evaluation materials for their performance review. They’ll wait until the last possible second to submit the self-evaluation. And when the review day arrives, you and your employee will attempt an awkward discussion, punctuated by long silences.
“Most employees dread performance reviews, and most managers dread giving them. But it doesn’t have to be this way,” said Melanie Lockwood Herman, executive director of the Nonprofit Risk Management Center, which recently created a website with free nonprofit HR and risk materials, including a guide to meaningful performance reviews.
If you prepare well and take a collaborative approach, performance reviews can become an ongoing conversation, and produce better results for your nonprofit and your employees. That means you’ll spend more time helping members of your team solve problems, and less time dealing with staff turnover. Here are a few ways to improve your performance reviews.
Talk about performance all year. Guide your team members to set goals at the start of the year. Work with them to set goals for the tasks they must accomplish in their job and their own learning and skills development. Set monthly or quarterly benchmarks and check in regularly to talk about what’s working and what’s getting in the way. Use your regular check-ins to help your employee problem-solve.
Make your team part of the performance review process. What would your team like to be evaluated on and why? Invite their feedback and incorporate as much of it as you can. Ask them to give you feedback on how effectively you support them as a manager, and where you could improve.
Use a strengths framework. What is your employee great at? Spend time telling them where they add value to the team and how. Coach them on how to use their strengths to improve at different aspects of their job. Learn where they’d like to build their strengths and give them assignments that provide opportunities to grow in those areas.
No surprises. If something an employee’s doing is causing problems, or they’ve displayed a behavior you need them to change, they shouldn’t hear about that for the first time in an annual review. Provide frequent, timely feedback, with an emphasis on what you want employees to stop doing, start doing, or change.
With a fresh lens and a collaborative approach, performance reviews can feel constructive, rather than dreadful.
