How to create a corporate performance review processes that your employees actually love
90% of corporate performance evaluations in the world are completely useless:
- they take hours to complete
- the information provided to employees is old
- they stress out the employees
They are seen as punishment tools instead of educational tools.
Tasked to create a performance review system for a startup, I was sure I was doomed to fail.
After all, how can I institute a process if I dont believe in it myself?
However, after interviewing 50+ employees a glimpse of hope started to emerge.
See, most companies focus on ADDING questions, software tools etc to existing performance review systems. But people I talked to all complained about stuff they wish the reviews DIDN’T have (extra software, extra questions etc).
So, what if the key was to eliminate all these elements?
- Our team created a simple google form that took 5 min to fill in (no software required)
- We removed the requirement to send performance reviews to HR, eliminating 90%+ of employee stress
- We made the process quarterly (instead of annual) so that the information was much more relevant
I then asked people what they WISH they could discuss with their managers. As a result we added the following sections:
- An employee personal growth section
- A “Feedback to my Manager”section
Here what we ended up with:
The feedback we got on this system was overwhelmingly positive. Many employees mentioned they where shocked to find a process that actually added great value.
Takeways
- Your employees are key stakeholders in the performance evaluation process: trust them to co-design it with you
- Simplicity beats complexity: make your process fast & lean
- Include long-term employee development questions alongside short term feedback
