Appraisals or appease-als?

The mere mention of ‘appraisals’ can be enough to make managers and employees break out in a cold sweat. Despite good intentions, they can be viewed as an obligatory box-ticking exercise that has no bearing on an employee’s everyday role and development.

If done correctly though, appraisals can be hugely impactful, helping to drive employee performance, incentivise and inspire employees to grow and help those who may need further support. But all too often, businesses struggle to get appraisals right, leaving managers feeling under pressure and employees disengaged.

A huge hurdle that many managers face is a lack of time. In today’s fast-paced working environment, middle managers are often left spinning the most plates, from meeting the demands of senior leadership to managing their teams. As a result, they can struggle to find the time to properly prepare for appraisals.

There’s also the temptation among some managers to simply use appraisals to appease employees by telling them that they’re doing a good job without explaining exactly what they’re doing well or where they could improve. While this might appear the ‘easy option’, this vague feedback risks providing employees with a false sense of security and prevents them from reaching their full potential.

Employees want to be challenged and have the opportunity to learn and grow. Having clearly defined goals and a manager that is invested in their development can be powerful motivators. According to LinkedIn’s 2019 Workforce Learning Report, 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their development.

Often, goals set during an appraisal are not revisited, meaning little progress is made towards them, causing disillusionment among employees and ultimately preventing managers from being able to accurately measure employee performance.

Getting an appraisal right

Recently, there’s been a shift among businesses to refer to appraisals as ‘career development reviews’. This feels much more in line with what an appraisal should be about. The change of vocabulary almost helps managers and the people being managed to enter the experience with a different and more positive perspective.

Appraisals/career development reviews offer managers the opportunity not only to measure and appraise an employee’s development so far, but offer guidance, training and feedback to help them progress. If someone is underperforming, managers should not be afraid to discuss what skills might be missing and what further support could help them. Equally, if an employee has done a great job, managers should communicate this in an insightful way, highlighting what made the work so successful so they have a point of reference for future projects. In short, appraisals should provide constructive, actionable feedback, designed to encourage and empower employees.

This requires managers to be well prepared and that entails more than a cursory glance at an employee’s last few months of work. Managers should look over previous appraisals and goals set to consider what’s been achieved, the challenges that an employee may face and whether there are potential areas for development. It's also important that when managers discuss how an employee has been performing, they consider targets or goals that have been set. If managers are ill-equipped for the meeting, it could send out a message that the business doesn’t really care about its employees.

A crucial part of appraisals is providing firm goals that give employees a sense of purpose and motivation for the next six months or the year ahead, and importantly which are shaped with their input. Managers should ask their teams where they see themselves headed, what’s important to them and if there are any areas they would like to improve upon or new skills they would like to learn.

Understanding the reward process

A problem facing many businesses is that employees often link appraisals to discussions about promotions and pay rises. Taking this approach can turn an appraisal into a negotiation, detracting from talking about employee performance and working together to develop goals for the coming year.

Businesses must create open-door cultures where employees feel able to raise these topics all year round, instead of in the appraisal meeting.

It’s also important that businesses make clear how appraisals connect to an employee’s development and how this impacts reward. Leaders and managers should work closely together to create better experiences around how employees are rewarded and clearly communicate them so there isn’t the expectation that an appraisal automatically leads to an pay rise or promotion.

More clarity around how performance is measured and what the appraisal process entails will ultimately lead to healthier conversations.

Regular feedback

While annual appraisals remain an important component of many businesses’ performance management process, it’s not enough to build engaged and incentivised employees.

Today employees want regular feedback and to feel managers are truly invested in their professional development.

A system of continuous feedback – however brief and informal – will reinforce positive behaviours, identify skill gaps and enable employees to work more effectively towards meeting their goals. In contrast, if managers hold off from giving feedback and reserve critique for once a year, employees are often less responsive to change.

Studies show that four out of 10 workers are disengaged when they get little or no feedback, while  82% of employees appreciate positive and negative feedback. What’s more, nearly half (43%) of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week.

This is even more important in a post-Covid world. There’s been much talk of ‘The Great Resignation’ and with the end of the year fast approaching – typically the time that many employees decide to look for a new job – it’s vital that leaders ensure they’re doing everything to make their employees feel valued, appreciated and important to the success of the business.

Studies show that employees who feel as though they belong show a 50% decrease in turnover risk and are 167% more likely to recommend their employer as a great place to work.

In a nutshell, building a culture of regular feedback, recognition and opportunities for development is key to attracting and retaining talent.

At JourneyHR, our ethos is to create great places to work, supporting companies to recruit, retain and engage the best talent to build thriving businesses. We know what great employee experiences look like and we can help to build appraisal/career development reviews and reward processes that work for everyone.

“According to LinkedIn’s 2019 Workforce Learning Report, 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their development.”