Why should you conduct a Performance Review? 

Review is going back to your work and seeing it again.

One of the most asked questions regarding Reviewing is why it can’t be done while performing the actual task. Why is it needed to be done later? Why is review needed to be done? What benefit would it do?

The biggest reason behind doing a reviewing at a later time after completing the actual task is that you get detached from the work. While you were actually doing the work, you were too attached to it. Once you get away from it and return for reviewing later, you see the work with a fresh and detached perspective and find out opportunities for improvement.

A very simple and regular example of reviewing is while drafting a mail.  It is always advised that we should draft the email and review it before sending.  So, whenever we do this, we always find that you can frame some better sentences and you can spot out the important grammatical errors.  You can also figure out the spelling mistakes.

So now the question is why these errors and possibilities of improvement couldn’t be identified while drafting the mail in the first place.

This happens because while drafting the mail in the first place, the mind is busy in production.  And the mind is capable of doing only one thing at a time. Human Mind is not designed to do more than one thing at one point of time.  So, while it is busy in creation it will only deliver reproduction. When you ask your mind to find improvement opportunities it will find the improvements and errors and will give the answer accordingly.

So that is why review needs to be done after performing. You can decide the period and frequency of review depending upon the subject of review.

Let us also discuss the important point –  that who should review.

So, the question is very obvious, and answer is very simple.  The best person to review the performance is the performer himself. Because he understands the objective, the target, and also knows the quality standards, and customer’s expectations.

Therefore, one should review one’s performance before it is finally delivered. The performance can also be reviewed after it is delivered to the customer so that it can be improved next time.

For individuals, it is recommended that they should review their performance on their own once in a week. Therefore, did you take out half an hour from the busy schedule on the last day of the week and review last week’s performance? You should try to find out what has been done well and what could be improved. In case there were certain projects that were not done as per the performance targets, the individual should find out the reasons for performance gaps and the remedial actions. In the same setting, the individual should also setup next week’s targets and performance goals.

In an organizational setup, performance is reviewed between the boss and the subordinate. It is recommended that the performance should be reviewed every week. During this review session, the subordinate and the boss should be very clear on their expectations from the performance review.

What can a Subordinate expect from the performance review?

1. He has the opportunity to communicate all the good work done to the boss and expect his acknowledgement
2. Subordinate must also go prepared with comprehensive root cause analysis and action plan for the performance gaps and take boss’s views on how the performance can be improved next time.

Now let’s look at what a Boss expects from the review session?

The boss has the following expectations from review session:

1. He wants to acknowledge the good work done by the subordinate and also motivate him for better performance by reinforcing good behavior.
2. He also expects that subordinate will come forward with the required data, performance goals root cause analysis and an action plan.
3. A Boss does not expect any surprises during the review session.  He does not expect any new problems which he was not already aware of to be discussed during the review session. Because review is discussing what already has happened, therefore, the subordinate should not bring up such problems which have not been discussed in past.

What review is not:

• A form of Punishment
• A one-way Monologue
• A Personal Attack
• A Scolding Session
• The Only Point of View
• An Opinion

To summarize, performance reviews are very important as they help both sides of the table to familiarize, focus on areas that need improvement and single out areas that are working well. Performance Reviews should be done frequently, because if done right, these reviews can have a positive effect on the success of both the organization and the employee as well. It can help the employee develop his career within the company, and let the employer know how satisfied the employees are.

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