How can you use performance evaluations to identify areas for growth?

Performance evaluations are like report cards for your work. They help identify where you're doing well and where you can improve. Look at the feedback from your boss or colleagues – are there specific tasks or skills mentioned? Those are your growth areas. Maybe you're great at teamwork but need to improve time management. Use the evaluation as a roadmap for getting better. Ask for guidance, set goals, and track your progress. It's like turning your weaknesses into strengths, step by step.

Let's start with some honesty here. Everyone hates performance evaluations, including but not limited to HR, managers and employees. However, they are a necessary evil as some companies tried to stop doing them and it turns out when this happened employees often got no feedback on their performance. The performance review if done well is a chance for a manager and employee to have an honest conversation about what they are doing well, areas for growth and professional development opportunities around company needs and employee goals.

Performance evaluations elaborate on how an employee is doing at a company. Some organizations hold onto their old evaluations as a compare to contrast from their most recent evaluations. Evaluations aren't meant to weigh down an employee. Instead, it's there to show how well an employee is doing and what recommendations from your supervisor are needed in order to become a better employee. When you go into the evaluation, you might have a good understanding on your strengths and weaknesses. If your supervisor lists the same strengths and weaknesses, then you are on the same page as one another. Ask them for advice on how to fix it so that your next performance evaluation is your best one! Nobody is perfect, we all need help!

Preparing for for a review is important and often the self review and manager review are often completed quickly and suffer from recency bias (remembering what the employee did last week and not over the review period). I encourage both the employee and manager to go back and look at their calendar, review 1:1 notes, look at any peer feedback etc. to be able to remind yourself about the your or your employees accomplishments and misses during the review period. Remember the review should be against their accomplishments versus their goals, but also around their performance related to their role at the company and your company competencies.

The best reviews are an open and honest conversation between an employee and a manager. If an employee is a rock star make sure to let them know they are doing well and provide examples of how they have gone and beyond expectations. If an employee is not meeting expectations, don't sugar coat it, but make sure the feedback is solely focused on not meeting the expectations of the role and not around personal feelings about the employee. Come prepared with examples of the expectations and where the employee didn't meet them. Bring in HR if you think the conversation will not go well.

A few best practices when setting goals. Don't have too many. I have worked at companies that had 10 or more goals per employee and when everything is a priority nothing is. The best number of goals is 3 well thought out clear, measurable and impactful goals, but I would recommend a maximum of no more than 5. I also encourage that one of the goals should be around the expectations of the role and one should be a personal development goal(this one is an additional one not included against the 3 to 5 goals discussed above). And don't forget to dust them off and look at them a few times during the year to make sure they still make sense and your progress towards meeting them.

Performance evaluation is a continuous process rather than a one-time event. Provide constructive feedback on a regular basis, this helps employees understand where they stand and what areas need improvement. Flexibility should be there in adjusting goals and action plans based on changing Business circumstances, environments.