What next after a performance review?

For most companies, performance reviews are done annually and it’s probably going on or coming up at your organization this month. Of course, this is often an anxiety-filled time among employees, especially for young professionals who are still making their way up in their chosen industries. However, employees still want to hear about their performance within their roles. As reported by ClearCompany, 72% of respondents felt that their performance would improve with corrective feedback during a talent management survey.

If you’ve received a great performance review, it’s clear that you need to stay on your path and keep improving. But for those who received negative feedback, the days after can be troubling. The Society for Human Resource Management reported that nearly 30% of employees were so put off by a negative review that they actively looked for a new job. 

What should I do after a bad performance review?

Be graceful about the situation

Accepting negative feedback is tough, especially if you are someone who truly cares about your job. However, while a non-professional setting might call for a more emotional response, you need to be more practical in the workplace. Of course, you can speak to your friends about it and even cry it out if you need to. If you are angry, that’s an understandable human response but ensure you don’t lash out and make more mistakes. In fact, talking it through with a friend or mentor can help you work out your emotions.

Think carefully about the feedback you’ve received

Two things will happen after a review, you either agree with your manager’s feedback or not. If you agree with what they’ve said, then you need to figure out why you are having such challenges at work and set a plan to fix it. If you disagree with what your manager said, you have more work to be done on your part. Often at work, if we are not clear about things, we can’t blame how others perceive it. What this means is that you might have a perfectly good excuse for why you are performing poorly at work, but is your manager aware of these factors? At the core of every company is making sure that they provide results in line with the company’s mission and vision. Another thing to consider is that you might be lacking when it comes to being visible in the workplace. Negative feedback will not always be because you don’t have any results, it could be that your manager feels you don’t have a good relationship with your team or you don’t share ideas during meetings. In cases like this, it’s up to you to develop the necessary soft skills needed to excel in the workplace.

Ensure you see feedback as a gift. 

I have worked in organizations where the culture makes it difficult to give feedback. What happens is performance is not improved on easily- people including your managers find it difficult to tell you the truth and it continues to drive more poor performance. Eventually, your performance is written up as consistently poor performance and the conversation is always ‘but no one gave me this feedback all the while’. This puts both managers and teams in an awkward position. I learnt quickly to seek feedback. 

Another thing is not to dwell too long on how the feedback was given but rather focus on the feedback itself. A gift must be unwrapped/unboxed before one gets to the ‘gems’ inside the box. Same as feedback, how it is administered ( tone, place, time, by whom, in the presence of whom, ) these are all packaging gift boxes, don’t dwell on the packaging, dwell on the gem as this is priceless

Create a plan

Now that you’ve figured out the areas you need to improve, you need to set a realistic plan in place to make sure that you overcome these workplace challenges. Identify each area and ask yourself how you can do better. Using the SMART goals system, make it specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-oriented.

Speak with your manager and ask for help if you need it

Armed with a plan, it’s time to speak with your manager. This is when you discuss the challenges you face and what you might need help with. You also present the plan you have in place to show that you are committed to making this work. Maybe, the help you need will be from your colleagues. In that case, you can also speak with them and ask for their help or guidance.

After you’ve spoken with your manager, there should be a clear set of KPIs that will mark your improvement. When these are provided, you can then decide on a timeline to revisit these again.

Own your plan

Plans without action are inconsequential. Now that you’ve figured it all out, it’s time to prove your workplace commitment by following through with your performance improvement plan. We won’t always get it right, but a commitment to excellence and diligence will get you there in no time. 

One way to follow through is to fix weekly 1-1 meeting with your manager to access your weekly goals and looking at both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. Remember how the objective is achieved is as important as the objective itself.

Driving and owning the conversations in itself is you taking ownership. Of course, this involves preparing ahead for the meetings and ensuring the actions out of the meetings are closed. Another is to proactively ask for feedback from your colleagues. Questions like how can I make your job easier, what areas do you want to see me improve on, what improvements do you want to see in my work that will enable your work to go better etc.

All the best!