About three months ago I took on my first direct report. I now face her three month review with trepidation. As an HR professional, I place an extraordinary pressure on myself to perform a “correct” performance review. I’ve seen bad performance review. I’ve complained about poorly done, ineffective, false, inequitable, etc. performance reviews. How can I complain and preach the way if I do not follow it myself?
The good news is that my company requires that supervisors consider feedback from many sources on the individual’s performance. This gives me a strong base and also lets me put my standards for the individual in perspective with other employee’s standards. However, “considering” other feedback leaves a lot of room for not utilizing feedback. I will not be ignoring negative feedback or writing flowery statements. I am currently in the process of sorting through the feedback and deciding what constructive criticism is valid and what lies in the standards of the individual as well as comparing this feedback to my own thoughts.
There is also the issues of remembering to focus on the big picture as well as the constructive criticism. In the big picture, I’m happy to report that things are going great, yet I must be careful that I construct a performance review that reflects the overall satisfaction as well as identifies critical areas for improvement. After all let’s remember that people’s feels are at the end of the line and you don’t want them to become too focused on one piece of constructive criticism.
I’m learning that a good performance review is hard to write. I have written and rewritten my thoughts several time in order to find the perfect formula for what I want to express. No wonder why supervisors don’t bother writing good performance reviews – it’s work!
June 6, 2008 at 2:59 pm |
Constructive criticism trick: imagine what you want to say to your employee is being said to you by your boss. It helps keep things as constructive as possible.
My first supervisor in HR told me that I wasn’t very good at accepting constructive criticism. I told her I was actually pretty good at accepting CONSTRUCTIVE criticism, but see as I had no yet received any I was unable to demonstrate this to her.
That shut her up pretty fast.
June 7, 2008 at 6:02 pm |
Haha. You have balls! I think the first step is deciding if the behavior/action is something the employee can change.
June 23, 2008 at 5:21 am |
[...] First Review as Supervisor Posted on June 23, 2008 by Rachel Robbins A few weeks ago I told you all that I was working on my direct reports review. I’m happy to say that it went [...]
November 20, 2008 at 12:04 am |
The CAREER COUNSEL section on http://www.broadbandelicious.com has a great article on Performance Reviews. Employees are sure to find it interesting and useful, especially during this time of the year.
March 4, 2009 at 5:17 pm |
[...] freaking out. In the past two days since I gave her the appraisal form (the same one she had at her 3 month review) she has asked me a million questions about what to [...]