I remember back in my corporate life, the trepidation as my annual performance review meeting was coming up. How had I done over the past 12 months, was I about to receive a rocket or was I doing ok? Thankfully I always did pretty well, but the made up fear was very unpleasant in the days leading up to my review.
Fast forward a number of years and for a number of employees, times haven’t changed much. The dreaded annual performance review is still being done, yet the impact on the employee’s performance after the review is still negligible. In fact, Gallup found out that only 74% of employees actually get a performance review once a year or less often, so there are a large number who get nothing. Here’s the kicker though – only 14% of these employees strongly agreed that the performance review inspired them to improve and just 26% strongly agreed that the feedback they receive helps them to do better work!
A number of large multi-national companies have in fact ditched the annual performance review as it just wasn’t working to inspire, motivate and achieve improvements. Also the younger generation who make up around 50% of our workforce, have been raised on frequent feedback, so a once a year performance review is just not going to cut it.
The answer is more frequent authentic conversations, overall, focussing on areas that the employee needs to work on to improve as well as highlighting positives. Sometimes these conversations set expectations and provide the necessary improvements to keep the person on track, sometimes they simply keep the manager and the team member connected. Other times the discussion could be more focussed on offering advice, additional support or identifying training opportunities.
Always the focus of these frequent discussions should be on challenging the team member to identify opportunities to learn, grow and contribute more than they did yesterday.
One of the major reasons employees leave companies is due to lack of opportunity and development. These frequent conversations will assist the company to retain these employees as they feel like their developmental needs are being met.
Employee development is the difference between a growing company and an increasingly irrelevant one.
How often do you hold authentic conversations with your team?
Roger Simpson – CEO, The Retail Solution and Author of “The Ultimate Retail Sales Experience” With over 35 years’ industry experience, Roger Simpson is recognized as Australia’s #1 Authority on customer ROI in the retail industry and as a global expert on staff coaching, customer service, and selling skills.
