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Text by Chuck Green Illustration by Robert Pizzo
In other words, employers that want to stay competitive will close skills gaps by first providing actionable feedback as part of performance reviews and then follow up with training and reskilling opportunities.
Dominican Sister Family Health Services, Inc., seems to have the hang of how to conduct effective employee apprais- als. Reviews there are carried out at three months, six months, and one year for new hires, says Susan Cohen, vice president of Human Resources for the Ossining-based organization. Furthermore, she notes, goal- setting is incorporated into appraisals and the company lays out its initiatives for the year, which are communicated throughout the organization. As a result, the goals of each employee fall under the larger corpo- rate objectives, by which performance is evaluated.
“The idea is to write two or three
goals you want to accomplish for the year. Hopefully, they tie into your manager’s goals and your manager’s goals tie into their manager’s goals and those tie into the larger organizational goals,” says Cohen. That way, everyone’s working on the
same page "instead of just plowing away everyday in their own little corner of the workplace.”
According to Cohen, this year, for
the first time, positive reviews will also
be tied to compensation for an extra morale boost for those who earn it, and an incentive for those who might fall behind. “We want to make sure that
we’re rewarding a stronger performer and not paying as much to mediocre perform- ers,” Cohen says.
Tarrytown- and Albany-based Independent HR Consultant Liz Taylor says that, ultimately, the quality of a review can turn based on the way it’s imple- mented. “It can be a good developmental tool, or make people really anxious. If done well, if you’ve done your job as a manager, it’s a way to reinforce the message you’ve been [conveying] during the course of the year. Managers want to think about that person, where they started, where they want to go.”
Mara Weissmann, a practicing attorney and president of Wise HR Strategies LLC in Chappaqua, says honesty and good communication are the best policies in a well-executed performance review. “It’s
an opportunity not to sweep issues under the carpet but to air them out, directly and honestly, so that there’s no misunderstand-
How to Conduct an Effective Performance Review
So you want to improve your performance reviews? We asked the experts what to do.
􏰀 A hard and fast rule from Susan Cohen, vice president of Human Resources for Ossining- based Dominican Sister Family Health Services, Inc.: Never surprise an employee during a perfor- mance review. “A manager shouldn’t deliver a performance appraisal where the employee says, ‘What? I didn’t know I was missing deadlines.’ Or, ‘You didn’t think I was a good team player?’ A good manager needs to give a lot of ‘thank-yous.’” That way, she says, employees needn’t wonder how they’re doing, which does no one any good.
􏰀Liz Taylor, a Tarrytown-based HR consultant, says the review should be “the conclusion of some conversations employees and managers have had during the year and an opportunity to talk about ways to do things differently.”
􏰀Another no-no, says Taylor: embarrassing an employee. A manager should express his or her observations, but do so respectfully. “People read each other so well. If they sense that you’re being disrespectful, you’ll burn your relationship with them because they take it so seriously.”
􏰀Avoid getting personal, urges Mara Weissmann, a practicing attorney and president of Wise HR Strategies LLC in Chappaqua. “If the manager comments on anything personal, it can be construed as an area where a person might have protected rights, so they have to be very cau- tious that this is about a person’s performance, not about what the person wears or looks like.”
􏰀Just like other employees, executives need encouragement and, therefore, should be reviewed. “People think about appraisals as something you do with entry-level and maybe mid-level people but that it doesn’t necessarily apply to those at a higher level within an orga- nization,” says Taylor. “But it’s so profoundly helpful to a business if employees at every level receive reviews. Even executives appreciate the feedback. If you want to make people’s games stronger, it’s a wonderful opportunity—but often a missed one—if you don’t go through with those conversations.”
􏰀If subordinates review their execs, those reviews have to be carefully designed and imple- mented because subordinates may have “vendettas, and reviewing senior-level executives gives employees a forum to disparage their manager,” cautions Weissmann, who adds that if the stated mission of the review is to enhance leadership development, constructive feedback on how a person leads and is perceived—coupled with methods for developmental opportunities, such as coaching or training—could be very effective.
ing, and people are motivated to want to improve.”
A cookie-cutter approach won’t abet
an effective performance review, says Weissmann. “You can’t provide feedback in a ‘one shape fits all sizes’; it has to be tailored to the individual and that person’s specific role in the specific department of the company.”
Reviews should be department-specific and tailored to address the skills of the dif- ferent levels of professionals in each of those departments, Weissmann says. For example, competencies for the accounting department differ from those of human resources and vary even more for the front line.
Greg Chartier, a human resources con- sultant for small and mid-sized businesses based in Ossining, is not sold on the value of employee appraisals. Chartier believes they’re the “most problematic” area for human resources and quickly become a
“bureaucratic exercise that drives the man- ager crazy.” They encourage an attitude of “fill out the form” rather than focusing on performance measures. In addition, says Chartier, most employees feel the process is something that “happens to them,” rather than something in which they participate.
For her part, Hilden is still trying to incentivize her company's review process. “I’m not there yet,” says Hilden. “Part of
it is getting buy-in from the top. If senior management doesn’t see the value, how do I present it to the masses? That’s the chal- lenge—and challenges are good.”
Chuck Green has contributed to various publications, including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, WallStreetJournal. com, the Washington Post, Crain’s Detroit Business, and Crain’s Chicago Business.
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