Employee Deployment and Retention
Making the Most of Employee Reviews
By Julie Gerstein
Jan 10, 2006, 16:53

Track Results Throughout the Year
Employee reviews are a critical tool in making hiring, firing and promoting decisions within your company. In order to make the most of your employee review structure, it's imperative that managers have a system of tracking relevant information throughout the review period to make sure that all issues that arise will get addressed during the actual review. This can take the form of a piece of specialized HR software, a database, or a simple notebook. Taking brief notes throughout the review period will avoid situations where the review session focuses on only one or two high-profile issues.

Have Employees Assess Themselves
Many managers start the process beforehand by asking the employee to complete a self-evaluation. This gives the manager a chance to see how the employee feels they have performed, develop an understanding of where the employee can improve, and what the manager or the company can do to help them.

Carefully Prepare the Review Ahead of Time
It takes a long time to prepare an employee review. Start early and set aside enough time to thoughtfully complete the review.

Schedule Enough Time for the Face to Face Review
In order to effectively complete an employee review, you'll need to block out an adequate amount of time to cover all areas of performance. Determine in advance how much time you have to devote to the review in order to make sure that all areas are covered, making sure that you include extra time for employee questions and comments. When speaking with employees about particular performance areas, consider the language and tone you're using.

Accentuate the Positive
Reviews shouldn't just cover problematic performance areas, but should offer provide valued employees with positive feedback and reinforcement. Use the review process as an opportunity for employee engagement; a purely negative review will most likely discourage and overwhelm an employee from making performance improvements, so start off with the positives and then work into areas where improvement is needed.

Look to Learn from Your Reviews
Keep in mind that reviews are both a way of evaluating employee performance and an educational tool for management. Reviews enable managers, directors and company higher-ups to learn about company culture and business productivity from the people who actually implement the company's policies--the employees.

Provide Year Round Feedback
Employee reviews are a vital part of improving and growing a company. In order to get the most out of your review process, conduct mini-reviews and informal check ups with your employees year-round. Your company, and your employees, will thank you for your interest and concern.

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