Performance reviews can be more than just a time to talk about performance. It’s a valuable development conversation that uncovers an employee’s strengths, allows them to align with the company’s mission, and opens paths for continuous development. But this is not always easy.
I believe that a great performance review cycle must start with HR leaders working in synchronization with managers. To do that, one must be given a clear structure to conduct these conversations. Managers are always important, but they’re definitely essential when it comes to evaluating team performance.
Below we have put together a list of questions managers can ask during performance reviews to extract valuable information. They are designed to help you make the best decisions for your business while also fostering good employee relations.
Discover your employees’ top strengths
The first and most important thing in an employee’s performance review is to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses. Recognizing one’s strengths can help to improve a person’s mood. Research has shown that higher moods have been correlated with improved outcomes in the workplace. However, not many people can tell you what their strengths are!
A strong competitive advantage for a company is its employees. When managers encourage their employees, they can find new ways for them to use the skills that are unique to that person. HR executives can tap into the full potential of their workforce with this type of encouragement.
Here are some helpful, strengths-based questions a manager can ask an employee:
- What are your top strengths and how do they shine through in your role?
- What achievements are you most proud of since last performance review and why?
- Which aspects of your work give you the most energy? Which parts wear you down?
- Tell me, what are you most excited to focus your strengths on over the coming few months?
Align employee goals with the organization’s mission
People want to feel an emotional connection to their company, and because of that, they are more likely to go above and beyond for organizations that align with their values. They’re more motivated when a workplace makes sense for them in that way.
More and more, HR teams are seeing managers connect their employees’ passions to the company’s ultimate goal. When this is done, businesses and their people cross the finish line together
Here are a few questions that your company’s managers may ask during reviews in order to properly assess an employee’s goals for the future:
- What non-work related goals are you aiming for?
- What areas of our company are you most passionate about?
- What would you like to achieve the next year and how can we help us achieve that?
Allow/Help your employees to actively define their career path
We think it’s a simple equation really: happy employees(with less attrition) equals more productivity.
A recent survey by LinkedIn found that 94% of employees would stay with their company if they invested in training them. One way to stand out from your competitors is by giving personalized experiences to your employees. HR team leaders can review professional development needs with employees’ managers and discuss ways for them to develop them during performance review cycles.
When managers work closely with employees to map out their ideal career path and empower them to develop towards that path, it can lead to increased motivation, engagement, and performance all year long.
A structured career path is one of the most effective ways to motivate, engage, and improve employee performance. Working closely with employees to help them realize their career goals and help them chase the goals can lead to increased engagement, motivation, and performance
Here are some questions that might help you identify the goals of your employees:
- What skills do you want to develop?
- Which career goals are you looking to prioritize now? Are there any you’d like to explore in the future?
- What is your dream job title and what responsibilities would fall into that job description?
- What is one thing you could focus on over the next few months to help you get closer to achieving your dream role at the company?
When you’ve ever been in charge of conducting a performance review, you already know how difficult and time-consuming it is.
To ensure employees are making the most of their time and are aware of their individual strengths, aligned to the company’s mission, and have career paths, it’s important for HR to enable these managers by included these questions in the performance review.
Performance reviews are a crucial part of people management at almost all companies today. These periodic reviews ensure that the employee and manager are on the same page, set the expectations clear, compare the periodic progress from the previous review and improve employee-manager relationship. But, it is often the case that most people cannot remember the nitty-gritty details/pieces of work they did while filling these reviews. Missing out on such details defies the purpose of providing the right feedback. This is why at culture.easy, we make sure the manager can see the employees goals and recognition aspects while filling reviews.
To learn more about how performance reviews from culture.easy can benefit your company and drive you into high-performance culture, talk to us.
