The performance evaluation is the pivotal point of the power dynamic between a manager and a direct report.
In most cases, this is when a manager is making a final decision to move someone to a Performance Improvement Plan or make a recommendation for a promotion. In many cases, direct reports are using this to gauge whether they want to move to another job within the company or apply for a job elsewhere.
The biggest takeaway for this post is to understand why it is extremely important to be blunt in your feedback at this important confluence of expectations, impressions, and receipts.
A quick look at motivation
Because this is my first people management post we're going to do a quick primer on motivation and the basic structure to a Performance Evaluation.
There can be 3 categories in an employee's motivation:
- Compensation
- Authority / Respect
- The work, itself (interesting problem to solve, they like the outcomes the business is driving)
We're mainly going to focus on the top two, as those are the pieces that a lot of people generally care about, especially earlier on in their careers. In the performance eval, you need to be able to answer
- Am I going to make more money next year?
- Will I have more authority next year?
- How can I make MORE money the following year?
- How can I have MORE authority next year?
You can look at a performance eval in three parts.
- Explain to them what you, as their manager, can do to help them make more money or get more authority next year
- Review of their performance and how does that impact your decisions.
- What should they be improving upon so that you'd pull the levers at your disposal harder for them?
- Many organizations have goal planning and performance evals as two separate exercises, sometimes months in between. However,
Many managers just go through the performance metrics and that's it. Just because you filled out the space allotted doesn't mean your work is done.
Why they are falling short... of a PROMOTION
9 times out of 10 you will not be offering someone an above average raise or a recommendation for a promotion, and this is where you need to make sure that your understanding of their efforts throughout the year is crystal clear. You need to have the receipts for both situational occurrences where they could have improved and, more importantly, behavioral / skill set patterns that may be preventing them from getting as good an evaluation as they would like.
Why is it so important to lay it all out
Everything boils down to trust. The performance eval is the pivotal spot for a manager to make or break the trust that you've been building all year. Your direct report should have a clear understanding about the process, what is in your control, and how their actions drive compensation and career track. The review itself is more reflection of your understanding of their contributions, their impact, and their skillset that allows them to help the team become successful.
Goals set next year are not only a commitment from your direct report on achieving certain goals, but also a commitment from you as a manager that you will ensure that they have the opportunities to achieving them. This is the key mutual relationship between you two that need to be established for both of you and the team to succeed.
It's definitely a balance
All of this is a balance of trust between you and your direct report that if they accomplish what you set for them, you will help them achieve more of what motivates them.
In the end, what you have to be is honest and demonstrate that their work and effort hasn't gone unnoticed. The amount of effort that you put into these reviews is the clearest artifact of your commitment to a direct report's success. If they ever sense that it is half assed, they're on their way out.
