Review your performance reviews!

In Australia we are drawing to the end of the financial year and we are heavily into performance review season. As with all good implementation strategies, I would encourage a review to make sure you are getting what you want/need from the reviews. Let's review the reviews...! 

How much time do they take? Prompting their move away from annual appraisals, Deloitte reported that it took 1.8 million hours to run the process for their 65,000 employees. While your numbers may not look like that, perhaps it is worth evaluating the hours it takes from your business.

Are they evoking helpful emotions? Does it leave the givers and/or receivers feeling things that are helpful e.g. pride, desire (to achieve), determination, passion? How could you increase opportunities to connect with these things either in the next performance review cycle or in ongoing conversations?

Are they enabling growth? How does the performance review lead to a rise in performance? Is it clear the performance review meeting is a point at which growth is created? In what way do you measure the growth to make sure that the best levers are pulled? 

Do your performance reviews do what they say on the tin? If not, perhaps it is time for a more effective conversation.