Are we overlooking performance conversations at work?
Do you have a performance review, appraisal or manager progress check ins at work?
If you are in a leadership position, do you offer performance and development meetings to your team?
I am often surprised by the absence of these practices, even in established organizations. Though some third party consultancies publish data around the proportion of surveyed employers that use specific tools and methods such as performance ratings and scales, this does not give us a view on what is happening in any meaningful depth across the economy. These are also the sorts of practices that you have to be inside or close to an organization to be aware of.
These meetings take different forms and have different labels. Here, I am using the umbrella term performance and development meetings to cast a wide net over meetings between employee and manager that cover the following themes:
Review of performance: recognizing achievements and identifying barriers to success
Supporting development and goals: career aspirations, objectives in the role, learning priorities
These meetings are a forum where concerns can be raised and addressed and are a catalyst to dialogue between employees and managers, providing an opportunity for relationship building.
There is no single formula for performance and development meetings. They can vary by:
Formality
Cadence (e.g. annual, quarterly, monthly, ad hoc)
Focus on performance vs broader development
Documented vs undocumented
Linkage with pay and progression
In regulated professions appraisals are built in to revalidation. In postgraduate medical training appraisals happen with every rotation of post. In larger private sector organizations with clear career progression infrastructure appraisals are built in and often linked to promotion cycles.
In other organizations across sectors, these stock takes don’t happen unless you make them happen: either as a leader or as a team member. Common reasons include lack of process, lack of resource, lack of manager training and an assumption that informal unstructured dialogue is adequate. There has also been an evolution of practice around these touchpoints from structured scheduled feedback opportunities to more of a continuous process, and in some cases, this has diluted the opportunity for ringfenced time for high quality bilateral feedback.
From an occupational health perspective (often closely related to performance and development) these touchpoints also provide a useful inroad to check in on work and health. The foundations of performance and development conversations should include the following for both employee and manager:
An opportunity to note progress
An opportunity to raise issues
An opportunity to set goals
An opportunity to open dialogue
If you don’t have an appraisal or are in a leadership position and have not been doing these for your team you can use these principles to think about introducing performance and development meetings. Remember! These conversations can be initiated by manager or employee!
