The performance review process is not about writing good performance reviews.

It is about planning a trajectory for the employees work in the coming year – based on an analysis of their performance in the past year – it is about influencing the future.

Always ask the employee to provide you with their own self assessment 2-3 weeks before you have to deliver their review.  Ask the to give examples of their work that support their judgement.

Only look at their self-review after you have prepared your review of their performance for the past year . Identify where there is agreement and open your review meeting with a discussion of these areas. This gets the meeting off to a solid start and helps to make some quick progress. Leave areas where your assessments differ to later in the meeting.

Where your assessment differs from theirs – whether you have rated then more highly or less highly than they have rated themselves – then you should re-visit the DATA on which you have based your assessments and in the review be prepared to back up your assessment with your data.

Before you show your hand ask them to give specific examples of things that they did in the last year that have led them to their judgement.  If they produce data that you have overlooked and that seriously casts doubt on your data and your judgement then be prepared to revise your review.  THIS SHOULD HAPPEN VERY RARELY.  If it does happen you need to urgently review your own process for collecting data on employee performance throughout the year and using it to prepare your reviews.

You should have several pieces of data available to support your judgement – collected over the past year – especially where it is less favourable than their own.  You do have data to base your review on – don’t you?

After the review the employee should be clear on:

• Your overall assessment of their performance last year;
• What this has earned them (promotion, pay rise, recognition, more responsibility, no change, less responsibility, demotion, termination);
• Specific goals and objectives for the coming year.

The performance of your team members is a direct reflection of your performance as a manager.  If you have one or more people whose performance is not moving in the ‘right’ direction then you need to seriously re-think the way that you are managing them.

Don’t be tempted to provide ‘vanilla’ reviews in an attempt to hide your own management weaknesses.

You can only provide good performance reviews if you effectively manage individual performance throughout the year.

The Healthcare Commission has published a report based on an annual survey of 155 000 NHS staff and some of the findings make interesting reading for the progressive manager.

• Only 26% thought their trust valued their work. This figure ranged between trusts from 58% to 11%.
• Survey responses indicate poor levels of communication between staff and senior management, with only 22% thinking it is effective.
• The survey shows that only 53% receive clear feedback on their work.
• Results from previous NHS surveys have shown that staff who had received an appraisal in the previous 12 months were more satisfied with their jobs and less likely to consider leaving.
• In spite of this fact only just over 60% of staff had been given an appraisal in the previous 12 months.
• Only 39% of staff were satisfied or very satisfied with the recognition they get for good work. Not feeling valued was the reason most often given by staff who said they were thinking about leaving their jobs.
• Communication between staff and senior managers is poor. Only 23% said senior managers involved staff in important decisions and only 22% considered communication between staff and senior management to be effective. Thirty-one per cent said senior managers encouraged staff to suggest new ideas and 17% said different parts of the trust communicate effectively with each other.

For the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust only 47% of staff said that they had received an appraisal or performance development review in the last 12 months. Only 16% said that they had received an appraisal or performance development review in the last 12 months in which they had agreed clear objectives for their work, which they had found useful in helping them improve how they do their job, and which had left them feeling that their work is valued by their employer.

Things were marginally better in the Leeds Primary Care Trust. 22% of staff at the trust said that they had received an appraisal or performance development review in the last 12 months, in which they had agreed clear objectives for their work, which they had found useful in helping them improve how they do their job, and which had left them feeling that their work is valued by their employer. The trust’s score of 22% was below average for PCTs in England.

39% of staff at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust said that they had agreed a personal development plan as part of their appraisal or performance development review in the last 12 months. The trust’s score of 39% was in the lowest 20% of acute trusts in England. The trust’s 2007 score has not changed significantly since the 2006 survey, when 39% of staff also gave this response!

What puzzles me is how any organisation can survive these appalling statistics. And I think the NHS is probably no worse than many in the public, private and third sectors.

The quality of management in the UK is generally poor. I think this shows the massive potential for performance improvement that lies in simply getting the management basics right.

Anyone for Progressive Management?