Review management is a term used by HR professionals but equally applies to team managers. It is a management tool driving company performance. Management sets the course, managers align the company's strategy at the individual level, employees express their training needs, and the HR department supports the employees' skills development. On paper, the process looks simple. The reality is more complex, however, given the high stakes involved in talent management and the many parties involved.
Best practices in review management
Labelled as unengaging, inefficient, time-consuming, tedious, and stressful, annual interviews have earned a poor reputation, among HR, managers, and employees alike.
The idea of simply eliminating yearly appraisals is tempting but impractical. Companies cannot function without evaluations or professional reviews to justify promotions and identify the development of skills within the organization.
Why not revamp the methods to enhance performance and make reviews more efficient?
Focus on career development
The annual review has become an all-encompassing topic, covering the previous year's objective assessments, setting goals for the coming year, performance evaluation, compensation, training needs, and more. The HR reviews are often too lengthy for employees to prepare for, challenging for managers, and complex for the HR department to analyze. By concentrating the annual review on a single subject, you create a genuine opportunity for dialogue and exchange. In this instance, the primary focus for discussion is the employee's career development. Other topics are better addressed throughout the year via regular feedback, and quarterly objective reviews.
Decentralizing the conduct of individual reviews
When the HR department coordinates review campaigns, employees and their managers are responsible for the content. In an appraisal review, it's crucial that the employee does most of the talking, not the manager. To ensure a productive meeting, preparation is essential, focusing the discussion on the key topics. Methods like self-assessment and individual goal-setting enable employees to actively participate in their progress within the company.
When evaluating employee performance annually, how team objectives are set — whether project-specific, bi-annual or quarterly — plays a critical role. At Lucca, the company has gradually adopted quarterly objectives based on the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) method. Management outlines the strategic roadmap, while managers and their teams collaboratively determine objectives that align with this direction, specifying how they will be achieved and the completion percentage for each stage. This approach fosters objectives that are both achievable and measurable, making it easier to prepare for and conduct annual reviews and empowering each employee to feel responsible for achieving collective goals.
Peer evaluation is also an excellent way to assess the employee's performance within a team. This type of evaluation involves the people who work with the same employee - superiors, colleagues, direct team members, - allowing for a more detailed analysis of the appraiser's profile and complementing the manager's perspective.
Streamline the review management process
Accessing previous years' reviews, designing or modifying the evaluation framework, launching the campaign, monitoring the review process, analyzing the reports - HR managers often spend more time managing and consolidating campaign results than acting on what they learn from them.
By streamlining your methods, you create better conditions for higher-quality reviews. Modifying your procedures, automating low-value tasks, and decentralising the management of reviews are all effective ways to empower your teams to focus on what really matters for achieving your company's objectives.
Automating the management of annual reviews: key features
The market for goal & review management software offers a wide range of solutions with varying degrees of sophistication. To help you choose, here are five key features to look for a solution.
A paperless form
Similar to time tracking, and the onboarding and offboarding processes, conducting interviews in Word or Excel format presents significant limitations in usability, for both users and HR. Review management software will not necessarily enhance the content of your reviews, but it can free your teams from the logistical burden of administrative management of campaigns, provided the interface is designed with the end user in mind.
Duplicating review campaigns
Why limit yourself to an annual appraisal when you can create multiple opportunities for feedback, ensuring that employees feel satisfied with their roles, transition back to work from sick leave smoothly, and meet their objectives? Launching your campaigns can be as simple as following three steps: choosing the form, selecting the targets, and setting deadlines.
A clear view on the progress of the reviews
Most review campaigns last one to two months. Without a comprehensive view of their progress, it becomes challenging to take timely action right individuals, quickly address at-risk topics, or identify overdue reviews that have not been submitted. Monitoring the status of reviews - such as not completed, in progress, completed, or waiting for approval – is crucial for successful campaigns.
Centralization and archiving of review reports
For effective review preparation both employees and their managers must have access to the reports from previous years. This not only saves them the hassle of searching through their computers or their filing cabinet but may also be necessary in countries where reviews are mandated by law and must be documented for inspections, such as performance-related review.
Usable data
To prepare your training plan, identify high performers or adjust compensation, you need to easily reprocess the data. A dynamic pivot table allows you to select items for comparison and calculate metrics, such as the average change in employee satisfaction rates in relation to their assignments, whether from one year to the next or by quarter.