May 15, 2024
What I’m about to say about employee performance reviews may cement my status as a decorated member of the Participation Trophy Generation.
But I’m gonna say it anyway (I am a proud millennial afterall) and ask that you hear me out:
The main focus of your employee performance reviews shouldn’t actually be reviewing their performance.
Lol, what?! Has my shelf full of Soccer Star trophies I got just for showing up to first-grade rec league finally gone to my head??
No, but stick with me…
I’m not saying your employees should coast through their jobs without any feedback after missed targets or KPIs. And they definitely shouldn’t get an easy-breezy-beautiful performance review just for clocking in.
Trust me, we’ve talked A LOT about having difficult conversations with your team, including how to address performance issues. Being able to tackle those issues head on is a crucial skill of effective and compassionate leadership.
Even as compassionate leaders, we still have to hold people accountable, right?!
But on the other side of the coin, if you only focus on output within the bounds of your formal review process, you’re missing a major piece of the puzzle that’s directly linked to your employees’ job satisfaction and ultimately, performance:
🤝 FULFILLMENT AND CONNECTEDNESS 🤝
Here’s why:
✅Fulfilled employees are engaged. Engaged employees consistently deliver.
❌Unfulfilled employees disengage. Disengaged employees often underperform.
✅Connected employees are invested. Invested employees are driven to excel.
❌Disconnected employees drift. Drifting employees rarely reach their potential.
So it’s in our best interest to shift our focus to the connection between fulfillment, connectedness, and performance.
It should really be a “root cause” conversation that leads us back to how our employees feel about their work. Not in a touchy feely kinda way (unless that’s your leadership style). But in a supportive and motivating way.
I get it, though, that’s not what those of us who “grew up” in our careers in corporate America think of when we think of reviews and evaluations.
We think of anxiety and dread. A lack of control. Being reduced to numbers and metrics. Compensation implications.
*shudder*
But guess what? I said this in last week’s newsletter and I’ll say it again here:
You’re a modern leader who gets to run shit the way you want to! 👏
In this case, that means you get to rethink employee performance evaluations entirely.
You get to decide the what, why, when, and how of your review process, and focus on the actual people on our team.
Instead of just ticking off boxes and noting every little thing your employees did right or wrong, you can use the review process as a vessel for checking in with your team about their goals, what motivates them, and how they feel about their role.
I promise you, that’s going to have a greater impact on their performance and job satisfaction than anything else.
There’s a lot more to it than that, and we’re digging deeper in this episode of On The Up & Up:
Tune in and let’s reset the standard for performance reviews together!
Listen Now!
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