Performance Reviews: Your Chance to Shine

 

At least once a year, a project manager performs a duty that is crucial to the overall success of her team and her corporation. This activity is thrust upon her with little to no training except her own personal experience. In her hands will rest the future of team members and co-workers. And she dreads this task immensely.

I'm talking about performance reviews. The annual (or, if your company is advanced, semi-annual) ritual of sitting down with an employee and reviewing what he has done, how he can improve and where he is going. Generally, this is thought of as your opportunity to give employees your thoughts on their performance. Through the performance review, you--as the manager--can provide them--the employee--constructive criticism about their efforts and can help steer them in the right direction.

Or your meeting can devolve into a vigorous debate about who knows what, why the employee was downgraded on certain review points and how this has anything to do with the raise he did or did not get. Most managers believe that the latter scenario is more likely than the former. However, using the following approach, you can turn a performance review into a unique opportunity to listen, guide and help an employee work better and smarter, and you can help him direct his career.

Set the Tone
One of the biggest complaints by employees about performance reviews is the perception…

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