What do you do if your tech industry performance evaluation falls short?

Communication is key, if you fail to see why your performance may be lacking discuss with others to gain insight in a different point of view. The chances of you knowing you were doing something bad and still carrying on without fixing it is pretty slim. People love to put their best work forward and continuously improve as it is very rewarding. If you fall short somewhere chances are you didn't even realize, speak to others and work to ensure the same mistake doesn't happen again.

Understand the Feedback: Take the time to understand the specific areas where your performance fell short. Seek clarification from your manager or evaluator regarding their expectations and the reasons behind the evaluation. Self-Reflection: Reflect on your own performance objectively. Identify any areas where you could have improved or where you may have encountered challenges. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. Seek Feedback: Request specific feedback from your manager or evaluator on how you can improve your performance going forward. Ask for examples or concrete suggestions for areas of development. Create an Action Plan: Based on the feedback received, develop a clear action plan for improvement.

In my experience, when you get a less than positive performance review, you tackle it. Seek clarity, yes, but before you upskill or make goals, first figure out the issues. Determine the gap. Is it a knowledge gap? Then up-skill. Is it a team leadership gap, then work with your teams to determine their needs so you can see where you fell short. It’s easy enough to fill knowledge gaps but explore what’s really impacting the review. Is communication of expectations the problem? Not understanding the goals set for your department? When an employees know what they’re doing and has formed a good team, sometimes the gap is related to culture, fit, misalignment of goals, etc. May be the answer is a to get a mentor. Rarely a new certificate.

When thinking about skilling up, start first with a concept that will support your current work before and master. Quick wins provide confidence to move to the next concept that is a bit out of your comfort zone.

When thinking about skilling up, start first with a concept that will support your current work before and master. Quick wins provide confidence to move to the next concept that is a bit out of your comfort zone.

Nobody likes to be on a performance improvement plan, but a plan is the best way forward whenever you get a bad performance review. After identifying why you fall short, you need a plan to address each issue identified. Always seek feedback from your colleague first, then from your supervisor. Act on the feedback even if it's time-consuming; the extra hour or hours will pay off. Get involved in communities around the specific area of weaknesses and use any learning opportunities to improve your skills. Remember, the best way to get better at what you do is to keep doing it. To become an expert in any field, you need ten thousand hours of practice, so put up the hours while using feedback to assess where you are.

If your technology performance evaluation is not considered sufficient, address the situation proactively, identify areas for improvement, and continually work to develop your skills and improve your technology performance. Regularly review your progress against the development goals and expectations of your role. Make any necessary adjustments to your development plan based on your experiences and feedback received. If despite your efforts you continue to receive negative evaluations and there is no clear path to improvement, you may want to reconsider whether your current role is truly suited to your skills and professional aspirations.

Realize that sometimes your performance matters less than your attitude. The times that I have achieved the most, but was most stressed out, was the time I received the worst reviews!