5 Tips How To Make The Best Out Of Your Year-End Performance Review
In the past couple of weeks several of my clients came to me to help to prepare or to help to reflect on their year-end discussions with their managers.
How to prepare? How to ask for promotion? How to recircle on a weak rating?
So, I collected a few thoughts on this topic, to help you get the best out of these discussions.
I guess I don’t need to explain what the year-end performance review is, but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and reflect, what’s the purpose of that?
The purpose is to review your goals, your achievements, and opportunities.
This is a great time to go over constructive feedback. Both from employer’s and employee’s perspective. It’s mainly focused on professional development and contribution to the company’s overall goals.
TIP 1 - Be prepared
Before you walk into your year-end performance review, take some time to reflect on all the work that you’ve done in the past year. It’s really rewarding to think back on the contributions you’ve made to the organization.
Compare with the goals that you initially set to what you’ve now accomplished.
In your preparation, these are the main areas to focus on:
1) Your goals and accomplishments – keep an eye of your goals and have your main accomplishments ready. I always advise my clients to keep a file of their accomplishments, collect emails referring to a job well done or a happy customer’s testimonial during the year. These provide tangible evidence and serve as a good reminder for your preparation or in case of a disagreement.
2) Your areas of responsibilities – besides the big wins, it’s helpful to review the day-to-day activities and responsibilities. This is an opportunity to discuss, how much responsibility you have, and if that’s too much or not enough.
Do you have too much on your plate or you have capacity to take up additional tasks, projects or teams. What is it, that you want?
3) Your key strengths - Now that you’ve delved into the areas that you can further develop and perform on, it’s time to talk about strengths. This is the perfect opportunity to understand what your manager recognizes and values in your work. It’s definitely going to motivate you to keep up the good work and apply these skills to even more aspects of your job.
4) Areas to develop – Even if you are not doing something wrong or poorly, there’s always room to learn and to grow. Be proactive in asking which areas you can develop more. Ask about specific skills (e.g. analysis, presentation, comms) you should work on. This invitation to feedback can help your manager to yield useful insights. Ask for specific examples, where a negative comment surfaced, so that you are clear what exactly you need to work on.
5) The company’s overall goals - This is the time to talk about if there are going to be any organizational or structural changes that you should be aware of or that may impact you and the way you do your job.
TIP 2 - Listen actively
Listen actively during this conversation, and better yet, write down your notes, thoughts, and suggestions. Documenting this is going to enable you to refer back to specific feedback that is actionable.
When you’re aware of your manager’s feedback, it enables you to actively work on suggestions and keep this information in mind as you carry out your daily responsibilities. Being an active listener means that you can provide solutions much more effectively and in a more timely manner.
TIP 3 – Be specific
Make sure that you are specific with your manager as you discuss your achievements, outline specific goals, inquiries, recommendations, suggestions or ideas. The more clear-cut, the better. This is no time to beat around the bush.
Don’t be afraid to be straight-up and to ask for the same transparency in return, because it’s going to give you much more valuable instructions to achieve your goals and aspirations.
Make sure that you’re discussing specific examples of what you’re doing well so that you can keep up the good work and thoroughly understand what types of skills, behaviours and qualities are valued by your manager and the rest of the team.
TIP 4 – Going to next level?
When you realize you’re completely comfortable in your job, it’s time to ask about how you can move towards the next stage of your career – that is, if you feel deserving of it and have worked hard to get to where you are now.
See if your goals align with the position you’ve got insight so that you can make sure that you’re taking tangible steps to move closer to the end goal.
It’s also smart to ask your manager about any kinds of openings or opportunities in other areas of the company that you may be interested in. Asking these kinds of questions really highlights your initiative and desire to do well– something that’s attractive to all employers.
TIP 5 – When you disagree - take time to reflect
If you are not happy with the review or the performance rating you got, don’t react from first impulse. Don’t go into big arguments or push back emotionally on the spot. Even if you are right.
First, always ask for examples, so that you have a clear understanding of the issue.
Then, ask for some time to think about it and to reflect. Do it in a calm way. Take your time let the steam out, to calm down. Take a walk, talk to a friend, get some fresh air.
In a peaceful environment collect your arguments, thoughts, supporting documentation.
Ask for a review-meeting where you can address your points and can request a re-assessment of the rating/grading you got.
Prepare all your arguments, and if needed, involve a trusted partner to review your plan and main points.
A very weak rating can be a sign, that you are on the wrong job, or - in worse case - that the company is preparing you for a no-bonus or an exit.
Bonus TIP – Follow up
Ongoing communication is really important when it comes to your annual review. Make sure that after you’ve outlined your professional goals, you set up a follow-up conversation about these achievements you’re working towards.
Take the initiative and suggest to your manager whether you think that you should follow up next month or next quarter, or during your regular (weekly) one-on-one meetings.
You need to be aligned on the expectations so that you have time to work on your goals before revisiting the topic.
Try to foster ongoing communications with your managers and not feel as if you have to wait for a formal conversation to discuss progress or anything else that comes up along our journey to attaining goals.
Success!