Give My Manager Feedback? Are You Serious?

You re-read the email from HR in disbelief: “As part of this year’s performance appraisal process, employees will be asked to evaluate their managers.” As if performance reviews weren’t painful enough; hiding out under your desk sounds more comfortable than giving your boss feedback.

Regardless of how you — or your manager — feel about this new process, you’re both expected to comply. So crawl out from under your desk and get underneath your fear. Better start identifying your assumptions and planning a strategy:

    ·  My manager’s not open to my feedback. It’s hard to know if your input is welcome, since the directive came from HR and not the manager himself. Ideally, your manager would initiate the request and create an environment of safety for your discussion. Absent his doing so, it’s up to you to determine his receptiveness. Ask your manager how he’d prefer to receive your comments. If you sense disengagement, peppering him with constructive feedback will fall on deaf ears or may even be turned against you. Better to play it safe and stick with positive statements. If your manager genuinely supports the process, ask him where he’d like you to focus your feedback —

ü  Is there an area of development he’s working to improve?

ü  Was there a past project he was involved in that could benefit from your input?

Knowing specifically what type of feedback your boss is looking for will help you frame your response in a way that resonates well when delivered.

·        It’s not my role to coach my manager. True, your manager’s boss is primarily responsible for her development. But for organizations using a 360-degree feedback process, gaining a full spectrum of performance insight typically includes direct reports. So now that you’re involved, be sure you understand how the process works:

ü  Will you be asked to complete a manager assessment form?

ü  Will your responses be open or confidential?

ü  Will the feedback be delivered at a skip level or directly to your manager?

ü  Should you expect to have a face-to-face meeting with your manager to present or review your feedback?

Once you have a handle on the process, follow it:

ü  Answer questions honestly and professionally.

ü  Focus responses on your own perceptions and avoid acting as a spokesperson for others.

ü  Use specific examples of performance.

ü  Provide recommendations for improvement if requested, but avoid telling your boss how to do her job.

Your feedback, when combined with others, will help your manager to develop and improve her leadership skills, which ultimately benefits you.

·        Why does my feedback matter, anyway?  In short, because it’s in your best interest to tell your manager how you want to “be managed.” Your manager plays a central role in the company’s performance management process. Beyond just reviewing the performance of his direct reports, he’s also expected to understand the unique motivational triggers of everyone on his team:

ü  What do employees expect from him as a manager?

ü  How does each employee prefer to receive coaching and direction?

ü  How much oversight does the employee need and how can they best be challenged?

By collaboratively participating in an exchange of feedback, you’re improving your chances for a successful and supportive working relationship between you and your manager.

As with any new process, start by getting answers to your questions and understanding the process. You’ll alleviate your fears and be in a better position to focus on feedback that benefits your manager and, ultimately, you.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall — Reflections of Performance: Five tips for writing an effective self-assessment.

There it is — the email invitation from your manager suggesting a date for your next performance appraisal. No sweat, you think. You’ve been killing deadlines and kicking the competition for the past six months. But what’s that last sentence? “A self-assessment should be completed prior to the meeting.”

Unless you’re a practicing narcissist, the idea of assessing one’s own performance leaves most employees either cold or confused. “What if I underrate my performance and negatively influence my manager’s assessment?” “If I toot my own horn, won’t it come off like I’m boasting?”

Employee self-assessments have been widely accepted for some time, and for good reason. Asking employees to evaluate their work against their own standards of performance gives the manager insightful perspective to use when preparing feedback.

Don’t leave employees scratching their heads, not knowing what to expect from the process. Share these best practices to help them reflect honestly and accurately on their performance:

1.      Tap your long-term memory. It’s easy to forget about the accomplishments or learnings from long ago. Cite specific and relevant examples of performance throughout the entire time frame under review.

2.      Be confident. This isn’t the time for modesty. Your manager has asked for specific examples of your performance, so highlight your accomplishments with professionalism and humility, and distinguish between “I” and “we” when referring to team-based assignments.

3.      Request development. Consider areas where you might benefit from additional learning or development. Be prepared to suggest specific training or developmental activities that will improve your performance and help you to contribute in your role.

4.      Focus on results. Present accomplishments that best support the company’s key business drivers. Use objective data for support, such as delivering early on completion dates, bringing costs in under budget or achieving high customer-satisfaction scores.

5.      Stay open minded. Remember that your perception of performance represents a single, biased viewpoint. Self-assessments and performance appraisals rarely align perfectly. Use this as an opportunity to explore and learn from differences of opinion related to your performance. 

Fair, Square and on the Level

Five Tips for Using Calibration to Uncover the Truth of Your Company’s Talent

One of the chief complaints heard from employees working in a pay-for-performance culture centers on questions of fairness: “I’ll never receive the pay increase I deserve because my manager rates tougher than others.”

Sound familiar?

If only Human Resources had an Automatic Calibration Analyzer 3000. Tweak some knobs, flip some switches, and performance could be automatically measured and rewarded across the entire organization. Despite technology advances, such a concept is still a thing of futuristic talent-management fiction.

Human Resources is responsible for creating compensation and reward strategies that are fair, square and on the level in the minds of both business leaders and employees. Including calibration as part of your performance assessment process ensures that similar effort and success receive similar rewards. Follow these five tips for using calibration effectively in your organization:

1. Calibrate across units. Managers should come prepared for the calibration meeting with preliminary ratings and merit recommendations for each of their direct reports and be prepared to defend, or adjust, their decisions against the scrutiny of their peers.

2. Use a facilitator. An unbiased facilitator, such as an HR professional experienced in calibration techniques, keeps the discussions of performance objective, balanced and constructive to the overall process.

3. Dig deep. Insight gained from calibration should extend further than stamping a performance rating on each employee. Take this opportunity to discuss leadership readiness, developmental needs, and explore potential talent gaps or retention concerns.

4. Make it known. Don’t shroud the calibration process in secrecy; keeping the process a mystery only adds to a perception of unfairness or distrust. Make employees aware of the calibration process; yet assure them that any discussions regarding individual performance will remain confidential.

5. Own the results. Since the intent of the calibration discussion is to ensure a level playing field of performance assessment across the organization, adjustments to managers’ initial ratings or merit-pay recommendations may result. Establish ground rules early on asking that managers take full responsibility for communicating appropriately with their employees.

Forget fancy futuristic gizmos; instead, use proven performance calibration techniques to uncover the truth about your organization’s talent.

Focusing a Wide-angle Lens on Performance Assessments

Assessments of talent are important, impactful decisions. Whether they’re used to support work assignments, performance appraisals or succession planning, judgments by others on the measures of our work can leave us either motivated or miffed.

Employees expect, and deserve, performance assessments that are accurate, honest, and provide valid and balanced feedback. But with cross-functional project teams and remote work assignments being the norm today, it’s challenging for managers to have a complete and current view of an individual’s performance at all times.

Using a multi-rater, 360-degree feedback process can equip managers with a wide-angle lens to more effectively evaluate employee performance. A 360-degree appraisal collects information from a variety of people with whom the employee has frequent contact, and assesses the skills, behavior and knowledge of the employee. The insight can then validate, or present contrary evidence to, the manager’s own view of the employee’s performance.

Most talent management experts agree that including a 360-degree feedback process can be a positive addition to a company’s strategy of performance management. But before you swing into action and start soliciting performance feedback, there are best practices to consider — and, of course, land mines to avoid. A 360-degree feedback process that isn’t carefully introduced and implemented has the potential to backfire and deliver a negative blow to employee morale.

Consider the following best practices when designing a 360-degree feedback process for your organization:

• Involve senior leaders — gaining their support to champion the process will build a strong culture of communication and trust.
• Marry the process to the culture of the company — decide early on whether feedback should be open and transparent or remain anonymous.
• Invest in training — for managers and employees alike, be sure everyone understands the process and expectations up front.
• Bridge to development — beyond performance appraisals, link 360-degree feedback to individual development planning.
• Size matters — include enough raters — ideally six, but no more than 10 — to provide a complete and balanced perspective.
• Summarize — if you’re using an anonymous process, provide the employee with broad themes of feedback rather than specific comments.
• Automate the process — an automated 360-degree software solution can bring added efficiency to the entire process.

Narrowing Skill Gaps for Employees

The employee without skill gaps is somewhat unusual. Sure there are superstars with few, if any, performance issues, but those are few and far between. Performance management should include not only the recognition of the gaps, but a plan to help close them.

Achieving desired performance outcomes is at least partially achieved through accurate identification of performance gaps and the application of appropriate training and development to reduce or eliminate the gaps. Effective performance management processes include both of these important elements.

When effective mapping of learning content to competency gaps is part of the performance management "infrastructure" in an organization, performance gaps tend to close faster and more completely. This stems from the fact that there is a much higher level of matching training and development efforts to areas where employees are weakest and need the most attention. Without this level of mapping there is usually a shotgun approach to training and development efforts.

ASTD reports that "Organizations are linking learning to performance and the bottom line, and they understand the relationship between creating a skilled workforce and achieving enterprise-wide success." The linkage between performance, learning, and higher levels of profitability is difficult to deny. Intuitively we would expect there to be a higher level of success and much less waste in the training process if attention is focused on closing performance gaps rather than painting employees with a broad development brush.

Training for the sake of training alone is a very bad idea and consumes valuable cash that can be applied more appropriately elsewhere. But when training is specifically linked to performance, training expenditures that are essentially thrown out the window are reduced dramatically.

Reviewsnap’s Latest White Paper Helps Your Company Move Ahead with Performance Management — Without Any Dread!

Reviewsnap, the leading cloud-based performance management software solution, today released its new white paper, “From Dread to Moving Ahead — Take the Pain Out of Performance Management.” Download a complimentary copy now.

Cue the shaking of heads, the rolling of eyes, and the murmurs of “not again” heard up and down the office corridors. How could a process so ingrained in organizational culture cause so much anxiety? Simple. By emphasizing form over function and process over performance acceleration. Too often, activities focus on compliance rather than creating lasting value for the organization and its people.

An effective performance management strategy can set the stage for a high-performance culture. Discover how to create a results-oriented performance management process that will advance your organization’s position in the market while also nurturing your best and brightest talent when you download your complimentary copy of Reviewsnap’s new white paper, “From Dread to Moving Ahead — Take the Pain Out of Performance Management.”.

“It’s time to take a deeper look into performance management,” said Chris Arringdale, Reviewsnap’s vice president of marketing. “Organizations that are serious about moving their businesses forward should stop thinking of performance management as an ‘annual event’ and instead create a process of continual improvement using ongoing goal setting, coaching and feedback. This agile model of performance management helps to keep everyone on track and moving in the right direction.”

When you download Reviewsnap’s new white paper, you’ll learn valuable tips and best practices that will help your company:

• Determine organizational readiness for performance management
• Establish a culture of performance
• Use goal-setting, coaching and feedback to drive engagement and results

Drop the dreadful process of once-a-year, paper-based performance appraisals and start using these best practices to help your organization move ahead. An effective performance management process is a proven solution for getting the highest possible return on the company’s greatest asset — its people.

Calibrating Performance Appraisals

Calibration, according to Webster's Dictionary, is a set of graduations to indicate values or positions. In the realm of performance management, calibration can be important to getting performance appraisals as accurate as possible by introducing graduated review of the performance appraisal to help ensure it is as accurate as possible.

Because of inherent individualized bias that we all tend to have when it comes to how we perceive the behavior and performance of those who work for us, having a process in place where others are allowed to review the ratings, comments, goals and development plans for employees will generally yield better performance appraisals. Yes, there are new biases introduced into this process, but by inserting multiple people into the performance review process, there is opportunity for new perspectives and for alternative views to help create an appraisal that is reflective of the employee's performance.

The process of having other individuals or groups review appraisals is the basis for performance management calibration. In a recent SHRM study, fifty-four percent of HR professionals who responded said their organizations conduct some form of calibration and 35 percent said ratings were changed as a result of the calibration process.

With more than one-third of the appraisals being changed in some manner, it is likely that the quality of performance appraisals is enhanced on an overall basis. That is a significant quality assurance process that is lacking in many organizations.

Some calibration processes involve a simple escalation from the manager to his or her manager for review of the appraisal. Others are more stout in that they involve a group that is responsible for looking appraisals over and working closely with the manager in refining appraisals.

It's important that the process be kept agile and to not involve too many people. By doing so, you can help avoid paralysis by analysis. A performance management calibration process is intended to be a quality assurance measure and not a means by which criticism is levied against the manager.

Calibration generally involves other managers, supervisors or team leads who have a fair amount of knowledge about the employee in question. The preference is that they be in a position to provide input based on some level of first-hand experience working with the employee.

There are some organizations, however, that will place an individual with little or no knowledge of the employee's work or workplace behavior into the group reviews. The thinking here is that that individual can ask appropriate questions and take an unbiased view of how the appraisal is being conducted. What they can't offer though is any substantive input on the performance of the employee. But, if performance notes (journal entries) have been used extensively throughout any given appraisal period, that individual will have a fair amount of information to use as a basis for discussing the employee's appraisal.

Having some sort of calibration laid over the top of the performance management process is something most organizations should consider. From a morale perspective, employees will feel better knowing that more care has been taken to complete their appraisals.

I Was Sentenced to 5 Years at The Office! - Employee Morale

Employee morale is yet another issue that is talked about a lot, but rarely addressed effectively. Organizational culture plays into morale and engagement so deeply that the process of improving morale can be a long, tough road.

Here are just a handful of things that should be considered in trying to elevate morale:

- Create an environment that's fun and lively. If your work environment resembles a prison more than a theme park, employees probably aren't excited about their surroundings.
- Carefully evaluate your management style. Is it facilitating in nature or is it dictatorial or overly assertive and direct.
- Encourage employees to come forward with problems, suggestions and issues. Listen carefully and acknowledge their concerns. Follow up on them and communicate results of your findings back to them. Don't leave them hanging.
- Address compensation and benefits to make certain that you're at least competitive with the market.
- Be consistent in how you administer rules and policies.
- Be fair and reasonable with all employees.
- Set expectations for employees about team work and working cooperatively. Let it be known that you expect employees to get along while on the job. Morale can be impacted heavily by fellow employees who don't work and play well with others.
- Be clear in your expectations and follow up when they aren't met.
- Don't ignore low performers. If they can't become good employees, terminate them. Bad employees affect those around them.
- Don't allow double standards. What's good for one employee is good for all of them.
- Eliminate a punitive mentality. Don't make employees feel that they will be punished if they make mistakes. Accountable, yes. Punished in some manner, no.
- Encourage innovation and creativity.
- Show employees that you care about them. Taking an appropriate personal interest in employees lets them know you care about them as people and not just as worker bees.
- Communicate as much as possible to all employees. Keep them well informed about what's going on in the organization.
- Look at the work environment. Is it light and airy or is it dark, dreary and counterproductive? Does it seem lively or more like a morgue? Don't underestimate the impact of decor.

Reviewsnap Partners with OpenSesame for Enhanced Delivery of Performance Management Solution

Reviewsnap, the leading cloud-based performance management software solution, today announced a powerful partnership with OpenSesame, the e-learning marketplace. The alliance integrates the services of both companies, giving customers of either vendor greater and more streamlined access to performance management content.

“With this partnership, our customers will have the tools to instantly act on performance information to more directly and immediately enhance their organization’s capacity to bring learning into the workflow,” said Chris Arringdale, vice president of marketing for Reviewsnap. The combination of the Reviewsnap and OpenSesame platforms will “ultimately accelerate the speed of innovation and improvement for any of our customers,” Arringdale said.

Reviewsnap is a performance management system that lets managers and supervisors give real-time, detailed feedback to employees, while capturing meaningful data about performance at the organizational level. OpenSesame is an online marketplace of corporate training courses. Its clients can choose from thousands of courses, read customer reviews, watch course previews and instantly use purchased courses.

The two companies will offer an integrated platform for the employees of Reviewsnap customers to connect with online training opportunities based on gaps in performance competency identified through the Reviewsnap performance system.

“OpenSesame has reviewed and selected course curricula based on core competencies defined by Reviewsnap,” said OpenSesame CEO Don Spear. These include courses in areas such as business acumen, customer service and communication skills. “Excellent training courses from OpenSesame’s 100-plus developers will be embedded in the Reviewsnap platform, giving employees instant access to performance improvement opportunities,” Spear said.

About Reviewsnap

In times like these, growth is earned by companies that align their people behind shared goals. If you are working to get everyone on the same page, Reviewsnap is with you. More than performance management software, we offer true partnership through genuine customer service and support. And unlike those other guys who care more about shareholders than customers, we can’t sleep at night unless you can. We are all together now. We are your performance management partner. We are Reviewsnap. Visit us on the Web at www.reviewsnap.com or follow @reviewsnap on Twitter.

About OpenSesame

Based in Portland, Ore., OpenSesame is an open marketplace connecting e-learning buyers and sellers. Buyers browse thousands of courses in a wide variety of subjects, from workplace safety to business skills, all compatible with any learning management system. For more information, visit www.OpenSesame.com or follow @OpenSesame on Twitter.

Employees in Denial

The employee who refuses to believe anything that might be remotely negative about their performance or behavior can be frustrating to say the least. That unwillingness to listen and accept something that could actually help them improve no doubt partially explains why their performance may be less than acceptable.

If denial is a pattern for an employee, it can be next to impossible to get through to them. When conducting their performance review, there is a strong likelihood they will become argumentative and try their best to confuse the issue.

The inability or unwillingness to see one's own weaknesses and skill gaps is not uncommon. Employees who fall into this category are distinctly different from those employees who take feedback well and use it to grow and achieve at new level.

The challenge with these employees is that because they are not able to get past insecurities or whatever is causing them to be in denial, it may be difficult to get them to change their behavior enough to remain on the team. This also points out why documentation of performance on an ongoing basis is so important. When employees default to denial as a defense mechanism, it's critical for the manager to have readily at hand specific examples or even a complete list of those performance "events" that relate to the ratings and comments the employee is questioning. Having these close at hand provides the opportunity to present factual supporting information that the employee may still dispute, but will have a difficult time proving to the contrary.

When an employee has a tendency toward denial, the manager should be focused on being as clear as possible and choose words carefully. Also, employees in this category often can't consume large doses of coaching in one sitting. Incremental coaching using smaller bites of information is often more effective with this type of employee. In other words, give them a tidbit to think about and then revisit that point in a follow up to determine if the employee is positively assimilating the feedback and accepting it in a way that could lead to behavioral change.

No performance review should be a surprise to an employee. But with an employee with a leaning toward denial, it is even more important to provide ongoing feedback and coaching so there is not "feedback overload" when the performance review is conducted.

Yes, employees in denial can be challenging. But with proper ongoing documentation, feedback and coaching along with a well done and well supported performance review, there is a chance that something will click with the employee and performance will improve.