It is not only the employees who are jinxed about review meetings, but also the managers who do the review.
Many a time managers suffer from appraisal anxieties like employees.
They sometime are unprepared, face time crunch or genuine lack of performance evaluation skills despite having access to enough data.
An article in peoplematters.com lists out a few common mistakes that managers make during review meeting.
The first on the list is being influenced by the recent events. This is called as the recent effect. Some might have recently faced relaying performance issues or even committed a blunder, big or small. This however should be used as the only parameter to judge them.
Giving a vague feedback will suggest that you do not have any interest vested in helping your team members. You have to take time to analyse their performance and get to the specifics and have data supporting your evaluation.
You are not there to evaluate their personality traits but their performance and subsequent results. Make a keen note on their behaviour as these actions result in either completion or delay of work.
Some managers feel that giving negative feedback will light up the room and try to keep a fake positive conversation. It is better to wrap things and say them where they did not meet the expectation.
Another major blunder with these review meetings is that it happens on an annual basis. But what if the employee wants to ask something and ask for your active involvement but you are not available.
Stop fearing the unknown and work on how you can make your managers to look forward to being reviewed for their performance. Sharing a healthy bond goes a long way in keeping them motivated.
