3 Questions You Must Ask During a Performance Review

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Performance reviews. Whether you  love them, hate them, or you would ditch them in an instant "if you were in charge," bottom line is that they are a reality in a day in life of most HR professionals, supervisors and employees.

Performance reviews involve forms, goals, expectations, objective - ok, subjective - ratings and sometimes pay increases and rewards. Every system is different, yet every system is the same in that one person is assessing the performance of another.

Listen to that again.

Regardless of the system, performance reviews come down to 2 people interacting with each other and the value of that interaction falls squarely on the shoulders of the supervisor, or rater.

After supervising and rating soldiers, junior officers, employees and students for over 25 years, you'd think I'd have this down to a science now, but I don't.

Each year, I am left with the feeling that I could have done more, I could have done it better. And each year I try something different. This year, I asked everyone these 3 questions and they were very well received:

  • How do you rate yourself? Not one person directly answered the question (stinkers!) but we had good conversations about how they see themselves in their role, thier challenges, and their interests.
  • What are you doing that I am not seeing? I know I don't see everything that people do each day to make this department work so this was an opportunity for each to tell me about problems they solved, customers they served, projects they finished and anything they were proud of.
  • What is happening in the department that I am not seeing? This was more for me than for anyone else but I wanted to know what happens that they wonder, "why doesn't she just freakin' do something about this?" 

You are preaching to the choir when you begin to whine, "It's so Hard." I started this blog almost 6 years ago with the very same lament and I can tell you  - it is what it is and it never gets easier.

So quit your whining and tell me, what are you doing, or what have you done, to increase the value of your interactions with your employees during performance reviews?

Photo credit: iStockphoto

Carpool Confidential: A Day in the Life Sunday

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I just entered a new chapter of my #momlife. I joined a carpool. 

I am psyched.

I am ambivalent. It's not at all about letting someone else shuttle the kid around - it's the commitment I made to participate in the rounding up of 6 swimmers and depositing them at the pool, it's the relationships with other parents I am about to enter into and it's about me getting into work on time.

Work. Yes, it's a broken record that's been over played. Let's just move on and get back to my new  carpooling duties and the new parents and children the husband, kid and I will get to know.

I am back to psyched.

The kid loves to swim, was just advanced to another group, and has her B times in sight. Coaches are on deck M-F morning but with both of us working right now, my husband and I could not get her to and from lessons with any predictability. As much as I'd be ok paying someone to take care of the back and forth - that option hasn't come together well for us in time for summer lessons.

What's a mother to do? She reaches out for help, makes that phone call and asks to join one of THE BEST swim kid carpools in town.

Carpool was not a word in this parent's vocabulary, so I googled it just to see what I'd find. Take a look at this. Who knew?

Karma, gifts and manly rides? What ever.

What I know is that the kids will get to the pool, the relationships will develop (or not) and the work will wait for me. It's all about the kid and it comes down to this - she discovered a passion and we are going to make sure nothing gets in her way.

Photo credit: iStockphoto