Avoid "Surprise Party" Performance Reviews

The old joke goes, 'The Surprise Party performance review is when the boss can't sleep the night before the review and the subordinate can't sleep the night after it."

Do yourself (and your employees) a favor this year.  Ask your subordinates to rate themselves before you evaluate their performance.  Soliciting a self-appraisal for your preview can avoid surprises in the performance rating process.  This step also enhances the quality of the final resulting review.

Just as in setting initial goals and objectives, the more employee participation in the plan review and performance appraisal processes, the better the results.  Self-appraisal cannot hurt and usually helps.  When an employee volunteers to submit an optional self-appraisal before the supervisor conducts the formal appraisal review meeting, it assures better mutual understanding of the employee's viewpoint and expectations.  It also reduces rater anxiety about employee perceptions and lets both parties focus on areas where they disagree.

Given a voice, workers will often be much more critical of their own performance than the boss, who can then reassure them.  Likewise, when people are asked to recommend goals and objectives for themselves to accomplish, they frequently overestimate how much can reasonably be attempted.  Again, the supervisor can clearly define reasonable management expectations.  Employee input improves the process and increases their ownership of the final result which management confirms.

Some organizations merely give the subject the same rating form that the supervisor will use; they then ask the employee to put him/herself in the place of the boss and rate their own performance.  Other enterprises use separate worksheets, so they can ask for employee input and feedback about subjects that are not normally documented on the appraisal form:  examples would include preferred assignment opportunities and future career interests.  When you can read their thoughts in advance, you don't have to worry about reading their mind.

You, the supervisor, are not bound by the employee's opinion of how good her work seemed to herself; but it will reveal what she thinks before you document your observations. Whether your appraisal is a periodic informal review or a formal year-end rating of total overall performance, the self-rating preview will reveal:

1. where he is too harsh on himself, so you can head off unnecessary anxiety and misplaced guilt;
2. where she agrees with your observations, so you can confirm her self-knowledge and encourage improvement without having to spend a lot of time on an area where you both agree;
3. where he is too easy on himself, so you can concentrate on these areas to emphasize your confidence in his ability to enhance output quality or quantity;
4. where she does not understand her job priorities, so you can clarify them and confirm that she correctly recognizes the proper relative importance of goals and objectives now and in the future.

This is not difficult.  The only surprise you will experience now is how easy and mutually productive the traditionally feared performance review episode has become, with your new insights into the mind of the subject.  If you do it periodically, such as every calendar quarter, the annual review becomes simply a final quarterly update to the continous stream of feedback sessions.

Try it, and see if you don't like it.

E. James (Jim) Brennan is Senior Associate of ERI Economic Research Institute, the premier publisher of interactive pay and living-cost surveys. Semi-retired after over 40 years in HR corporate and consulting roles throughout the U.S. and Canada, he’s pretty much been there done that (articles, books, speeches, seminars, radio/TV, advisory posts, in-trial expert witness stuff, etc.) and will express his opinion on almost anything.

Image courtesy of: www.findingmygroove.com

Comments

[Dan Walter]

Jim,

You suggestion on how to avoid surprise in performance reviews is one that more companies should use. I have found an even more effective way to avoid the surprise is to actually manage and lead employees all year long. Talk to them about performance regularly. Make sure they always know where they stand and what they need to do to progress.If this was done, the self-evaluations would be "performance confirmations" and requests for guidance for further success.

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

Quite correct, Dan. When performance review is a continual ongoing process rather than a special event that occurs only once a year, you minimize the "surprise party" risk. This suggestion may be unnecessary for those who actively and properly manage performance every day, but those who do NOT will need every aid they can get. Maybe it will inspire them to do it right next year, so the year-end review will become a simple roll-up of multiple feedback discussions and a springboard for future improvement.

[Chuck Csizmar]

Good post, Jim, and solid advice about how to arrange a mutually productive appraisal session. However, would you offer the same advice about quarterly updates if the manager has, say 10 or more employees?

Much of the advice out there these days about how to conduct performance reviews seems to consider that the manager has only one employee to worry about. In my experience processes and good intent seems to break down when quantity is involved.

[Dick Grote]

Jim,

Your suggestion to ask employees to write a self-appraisal sounds attractive, but it really is not a good idea. Here's why.

In their well-known article, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments,” Cornell University researchers Justin Kruger and David Dunning report that those who are incompetent performers are also incapable of assessing the difference between good and bad performance. As they put it, “When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, they are left with the mistaken impression that they are doing just fine.”

Research consistently demonstrates that individuals are notoriously inaccurate in assessing their own performance, and the poorer the performer, the higher (and more inaccurate) the self-assessment. Research by the consulting firm Lominger, Inc. indicates that “The overall correlation between self-ratings and performance was .00. The most accurate rater by far is the immediate boss.”

In July 2007 BusinessWeek surveyed 2000 Americans in middle management positions and above, asking them the question, “Are you one of the top 10% of performers in your company?” Not one of the subgroups in the survey had less than 80 percent of the respondents answering the question affirmatively. Eighty-four percent of all middle managers reported that they were in the top ten percent of performers in their company. Executives — the most deluded cluster by far — provided a Yes response in 97 percent of those surveyed.

The final problem with asking an employee to write a self-appraisal is that doing so may create a false impression of what the nature of performance appraisal is. When he’s been asked to write a self-appraisal, particularly when it’s written on the company’s appraisal form, it’s easy for an employee to assume that the structure of the performance appraisal process is that both the individual and the manager write appraisals of the individual. They then get together, share each one’s document with the other, and then come to a common agreement on the final performance appraisal.

That’s wrong. Again, the appraisal is a record of the supervisor’s opinion. The review meeting is a discussion, not a negotiation. Asking the individual to create a self-appraisal encourages misunderstanding by both parties.

Dick Grote

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

Great points, Dick. Yes, of course, one would NEVER rely on the employee's self-appraisal instead of the responsible supervisor's review. You are quite correct that those many who misinterpret their personal superiority need to be enlightened about what the manager really seeks in their output results. That's exactly why a preview process can be helpful.

The self-appraisal option is a PREQUEL to the official formal supervisor's decision, which becomes the documented record. The self-examination process (however it may be conducted) is simply an aid to better mutual understanding. It is done primarily for the supervisor to gain insight into the subordinate's self-image, so as to more efficiently properly focus the appraisal communication exercise. Where they agree, no sweat; the manager can incorporate the employee's correct views and not waste time on areas of agreement. If the self-review is delusional, it alerts the boss and permits the supervisor to correct any misapprehension in the official review session. I suggest a resolution process facilitated by preview input supplied by the employee but with final authority reserved to the manager alone. It's not a negotiation but a communication where mutual understanding does not require compromise on the part of the supervisor who remains the official appraiser. As I'm sure you agree, Dick, ignoring the subject's unreasonable self-assessment (espectially if the corrective intervention has been reserved to the last minute and saved for the formal annual review) is a receipe for disaster; this is the last moment for any reality check that may have been deferred earlier. Agree completely with you on your underlying points, however, because they emphasize how vital it is that the purpose, scope and weight of any self-assessment is clarified in advance.

[Derek Irvine, Globoforce]

Jim, terrific post. I do have problems with the annual performance review construct for many reasons. That's one reason we advocate using strategic recognition as an element of a review. If you allow peer-to-peer recognition, requiring detailed messages of why the recognition is being given, and then including that feedback into reviews, managers will often get a much more full picture of employee contribution, capability and even interests than they would be aware of otherwise.

As I wrote elsewhere:

"You [the manager] are still just one data point on your achievements. I would say instead, no one knows who's doing the best job like the PEOPLE doing the job."

(from this post: http://blog.globoforce.com/2010/08/power-to-people-how-to-improve.html)

[E James (Jim) Brennan]

Thanks, Derek. I strongly agree with the vital need for multiple-perspective input feeds into the review process, as you also advise. The people doing the work certainly do know best what THEY are actually doing; but the judgment of the adequacy of their output results is truly a responsibility reserved to the manager. After all, the boss is the one supposed to guide and direct performance towards the proper organizational objectives rather than what the subordinates might perfer to do; but the manager's understanding can be expanded by considering information from peer sources.