Surviving the Workday

GhostGirl found that when annual reviews are reviewed by employees, the reviews “need improvement”:

Almost half of employees think that their boss is dishonest during appraisal processes, while a third think the whole process is a waste of time, according to research by productivity body Investors in People.

The survey found that 44 per cent of workers had had appraisals in which they thought their superior had been dishonest, and 29 per cent had had ones which had been a waste of time. A fifth had had appraisals that they said were unfair.

As I read this article, I was reminded of my annual review at a non-profit agency where I could clearly see my score had been changed so that the points didn’t add up to enough to get a 3% raise. I don’t think this sort of dishonesty is uncommon.

So if you’re a manager (or just someone in charge of reviews), I think you can take the following ideas from the article in order to improve your review or appraisal process:

1. Think deeply about the process and the actual employee before the review, and communicate some of your thinking to the employee so he/she doesn’t regard the review as a box checking exercise and knows that you’ve been paying attention.

2. Give regular feedback throughout the year so that employees are not surprised by any issues that come up in the review.

3. Follow-up on anything that is said or done in the employee review meeting. Don’t just drop the issues out of relief that the meeting is done.

I should note that the same issues with employees and reviews come up with students and report cards. And GhostGirl may say more when she’s back from vacation as she conducts lots of reviews. We’re actually having lunch soon. I’ll ask her what she thinks.