3 Ways to Kill the Performance Review Time Lag

Performance reviews aren’t a one-and-done deal. Now that you’ve established goals with your employee, sourced feedback from all realms of the company, and had the actual review meeting, you need to follow up on them. Otherwise, you’ll fall into the same 12-month trap that’s making performance reviews fail.

The Perfect Timing

Annual performance reviews don’t have to be completely abolished, but it’s time organizations supplemented them with regular check-ins along the way. Organizations that are relying solely on annual reviews are failing their employees (and their own business as well). Globoforce surveyed employees and asked when they prefered to get feedback:

• 17% want it quarterly or annually
  
  
• 23% want it weekly
  
  
• 71% want it ASAP

Keep in mind that one type of frequency doesn’t triumph over all — weekly isn’t better than quarterly. But there are certain frequencies that function better for other objectives.

1. Quarterly: How well did someone execute a project? How is the project performing after it was launched? This is an ideal time to review an employee’s project performance. And because these check-ins occur every three months, it’s time to establish new OKRs for the next quarterly meeting.
   

2. Weekly: Is this employee making progress on their OKRs? What are their pain points? Keep these meetings short and informal, but also use them as chance to check in on how employees are coming along on their goals. Find out what’s working and what’s not working. Then work on finding a solution to any obstacles that might be hindering employees from completing their goals.

3. ASAP: Did an employee put in extra hours and effort to complete a project on time? Or perhaps they’re not following the correct procedures for communicating with clients. Positive or negative, don’t wait to give out praise or correct someone’s behavior.

Having regular reviews keeps things current, removes inaccuracies, and gives employees the consistent feedback they need to improve and exceed expectations. But if you wait until 12 months to check in with your employee, it’s just as good as giving them the cold shoulder.

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