Are you ready for next year’s performance review cycle?

Part 3 of 3

I’ve gone over the first two suggestions on how to get ready for performance review cycles during this pandemic in my previous newsletters. The first newsletter in this series suggested you designate at least one 1:1 session a month to lightweight performance discussions with your manager. The second one advised you keep a monthly diary of these discussions.

When you think about it, though, you can apply these suggestions in whatever context – pandemic or not. I’ve used these patterns in several companies I’ve worked in the past, and they have served me very well.

Now on to the third and last suggestion:

Suggestion 3 of 3:

Get feedback from others.

Frank feedback from your peers is also essential for your performance review. And when I say peers, I don’t mean just your team. Look beyond them. Who do you work with from other departments? Try and chat with different people, and add the results of this discussion to your diary.

I am assuming you have good relationships with other people. Still, if they are hesitant to give you such feedback, then you may have a problem. One problem is – how safe do they feel, or how safe is your office environment. Establishing psychologically safe spaces in one-on-ones and the work environment is paramount to getting feedback from others.

If they might not feel safe, they may not necessarily have a good relationship with you and your work; or, you have a possible toxic work environment that doesn’t allow them to be honest with you. Either way, these are potential flags for your performance review. 

Suppose you do have a work environment that has a reasonable degree of psychological safety. In that case, you may want to partner with your HR business partners and ask them how you can approach asking other people for frank feedback. (And, if you want to know how you can personally establish a psychologically safe space with someone, feel free to e-mail me.)

Performance Review Time

By the time the performance review cycle comes around, you should have twelve months of diary entries. These diary entries will help you quickly fill out your self-assessment, usually a copy and paste operation, with some slight wordsmithing.

One last thing…

You might notice – not once did I mention that a manager should be doing this. Why? The performance review impacts you and your career. Whether you are an individual contributor or a manager yourself, it’s always good to be your own best champion when it comes to your calling. 

So, go ahead and unleash your best champion, especially in these interesting times.

I hope you enjoyed this series on getting ready for your next performance review cycle. Please do e-mail me if you have any questions or would like to chat further.

Until next time,

-JF