5 Common mistakes managers commit during performance review

Performance reviews at workplace, contrary to other popular practices are very important events for any company who wants to grow efficiently. The review data helps company make critical decisions related to business development, financial planning, recruitment, retention and attrition are the few among them. It is not only essential to have a proper performance management procedure set up but also train and educate the managers on it. This is one of the reasons that most of the successful companies hire OD consultants to overcome these hurdles.

Conducting reviews without Employee performance data:

In many companies, employee performance review is just an yearly custom and managers is not interested in collecting the data or keep a track of their subordinate’s performance, achievements or activity points through the year. Reviews are useless if there is no information or correct data. Monitoring, tracking and acquiring performance data is an crucial skill managers should have.

This process ensures the feedback is work specific and serve the objective. Think how you will respond to an employee who asks for specific examples when they’re asked to demonstrate greater accountability and responsibility. One must have those examples ready and sound confident. OD consulting firms structure the whole program as per company needs efficiently and thus helping avoid conflicts in future.

Letting prejudice and bias influence evaluation:

It’s very common for managers to rate and review employee’s performance based on their personal sentiment rather than data. The most common bias is managers’ judgement of performance based on their personal likes or dislikes about an particular employee. Sometimes, they end up rating someone high just because they like the way they interact or they rate them low just because they are not their ‘type’ and have issues having a good rapport among them.

Performance of employees are evaluated negatively or positively based on recent or current performance or events only and do not consider their entire performance period. This is the easiest and most common trap that managers fall into and must be careful about dealing with it.

Not providing timely training and feedback:

A popular and general misconception is that reviews are a once a year affair. One loses out on a lot of performance data and behaviors that could have been highlighted and resolved earlier. Few managers think Performance reviews are all about talking short comings of an employee. Instead of concentrating on negative feedback at the end of the period or during annual review, focus on resolving the issues with timely training and feedback discussions. This helps avoid any last minute bitter surprises for an individual and these discussions help managers in creating development plans for individuals periodically.

Making it neutral:

Performance reviews can be a perfect chance to bond with the team and understand their story and aspirations. It is also an opportunity to improve one’s own effectiveness and social skills.Managers often make these conversations sound very robotic and boring. These communication is of much more value to the employee than it’s to the manager. Listening and involving in productive discussions to understand their point of view is vital to meet the  employee expectations.

Focus on behaviors:

It is not just important to focus on what one has done but it’s also equally important to understand how the results were achieved. Most emerging companies focus on revenue through sales and sales target.Achieving targets are important but Managers should also look at what went into achieving the target. Were the dealings genuine? Did the employee treat clients with all respect? Were the company policies fairly adhered to? These questions are very important and Including competencies (behaviors) in reviews is something that managers shouldn’t avoid.

The annual employee review provides a perfect chance & opportunity for all individuals to reflect on their learning, achievements and shortcomings in the past year and utilize this experience to learn and grow as an individual.

Corporate diversity training programs is as important to emerging companies as it is to large corporate. Dimenzion3 provides world class solutions and specializes in the consulting and Competency Development (Training) practices. Backed by years of experience that our senior consultants bring, DimenZion3 offers holistic consulting and capability building solutions  in all areas of a company’s development.