By: Jim Roddy, President & CEO at the RSPA

The RSPA team just completed our annual review process and, believe it or not, I’m excited to tell you all about it.

Annual reviews are the bane of existence for many organizations because the process is typically mind-numbing, bureaucratic, and time-wasting. Reviews have gotten so counterproductive that many companies have ditched them altogether, happy to throw out the baby with the bathwater because hoo-boy is that water nasty.

What makes our annual review process different? It’s simple. Employees are treated like grown-ups.

There’s no situation where you rate “Attitude” on a scale of 1 to 5, give yourself a 4, and then have to listen to why your boss feels you’re only a 3.5 before moving on to hear their analysis of your “Creativity & Problem Solving.”

I dare you to pull out a rating scale like that on a second date; there won’t be a third. Do that with your spouse the next time you sit down for dinner; you’ll be sleeping on the couch that night.

If assessment gimmicks make non-work relationships awkward, why do we let them vandalize our work relationships?

You and your colleagues don’t have to punch yourselves in the nose every 12 months. For years I’ve embraced a better system, one grounded in humanity and mutual respect.

I’ll share with you first the “Annual Reviews for Grown Ups” process followed by the specific questions that drive this process.

5-Step Annual Review Process
The document that serves as the foundation for the review is a Discussion Guide. It’s not a form. There are no ratings. There are no checkboxes. The document is a list of questions organized by topic. The purpose of the document is to guide a discussion between the employee and their supervisor.

1. To start the process, the employee adds notes to the Discussion Guide, answering only questions they deem relevant. They’re not required to write a detailed report or a novel. They include only key points to discuss with their supervisor.
2. After the supervisor receives the completed Discussion Guide from the employee, the supervisor adds their own comments based on the employee’s answers to the questions, the supervisor’s observations from the past 12 months, and whatever else is germane to discuss with the employee.
3. The supervisor and employee then meet to walk through the document section by section. For in-person reviews, each will have a hard copy in front of them. For remote reviews, the supervisor shares the document on the screen and adds live notes based on the dialogue.
4. The dialogue begins with a discussion about pay. Don’t make the employee wait until the end for the #1 question they and their family want answered: “How big is my raise?” The rest of the meeting is a discussion about mutually agreed upon goals and initial actions (by both the employee and the supervisor) to achieve those goals. This sets up the employee/supervisor relationship for the next 12 months. “How are we going to work together to achieve these goals?”
5. Post-meeting, the employee and supervisor “operationalize” the review. They add the agreed-upon goals and actions to systems like their weekly 1-on-1 meeting agenda to ensure execution.

Note that this process is not an assessment of the “subordinate” by their “almighty supervisor.” This is not a dog show judge pensively examining a Goldendoodle’s gait and issuing a verdict. It’s a conversation, person to person, between one individual with responsibilities as an employee and another individual who has responsibilities as their supervisor/advisor/coach.

Employees are people. Supervisors are people. During the annual review, they should treat each other like … people. What a novel concept!

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Annual Review Discussion Guide – Topics & Questions
On the Discussion Guide document, each section has an open area below the questions for “Employee Comments” and “Supervisor Comments.”

1. Your satisfaction with your career

• • How do you feel about your pay? How do you feel it compares to others in the community and in the industry?
  • What are your pay expectations for next year?
  • Do you feel you are able to play as big a role as you like?
  • Which parts of your current role do you enjoy most? Why? What would be the ideal role for you?
  • Do you feel you are given the opportunity to participate in work decisions?
  • Do you feel challenged?
  • Do you feel appreciated?
  • Do you feel good about every one of your co-workers?

2. Please answer the following:

• • What drives you?
  • What scares you?
  • What do others need to consider when communicating with you?
  • Why would you leave the company?
  • What keeps you here?

3. Review the Character Is Destiny document

• • Which are your strengths?
  • Which are not your strengths?

4. Your areas to improve during the upcoming year

• • What part of your current role are you struggling with the most?
  • What systems have you installed to support any of your shortcomings?
  • Are there any skills or abilities you want to gain? How can the company help?

5. Your individual goals/focuses for the prior year

• • What were your goals for the prior year?
  • Did you meet/exceed each of them?
  • Do you believe you have the opportunity for growth and achievement?

6. Your vision for changes this upcoming year; your individual goals/focuses

• • What are your goals for next year?
  • What are your personal goals?
  • Do you believe you have the opportunity for growth and achievement?

7. Your criticism of the company

• • Suggestions for improvement
  • What one change would make you happier in your job?
  • Questions regarding policies, rules, or actions we’ve taken in the past year

8. Additional feedback

• • Is there anything else we should talk about?
  • What else could be done that could help us work better together?

Review conversations take as long as necessary. I think the shortest I’ve ever conducted was just under an hour. The typical review discussion is around 90 minutes. If there’s lots to discuss – a role change, a teaching opportunity emerges, or the employee presents a significant challenge that needs addressed, the review can take close to three hours spread across a couple meetings.

There should be no surprises during the annual review discussion. If there is a surprise, you and the employee have a communication malfunction. Some supervisors hold back criticism all year and then “let ‘em have it” at the review. That’s lousy management – I call it “Jack In The Box Management.” You bite your tongue all year (that’s the music playing while you wind the handle) and then BOING! you scare the crap out of the employee by springing criticism on them.

The “Annual Reviews for Grown-Ups” system isn’t all sunshine and lollipops. There can be tension. There can be misunderstandings. There can be hurt feelings. There can be confusion.

But this system creates an environment that helps the employee and supervisor better achieve important business and emotional outcomes because there’s mutual respect. The center of the system is a two-way dialogue, not a lecture or time-consuming bureaucracy.

A couple years ago, I shared the Annual Review Discussion Guide in Word format with an inquisitive RSPA VAR member, and he told me recently how his company’s reviews have become less time consuming, more productive, and more enjoyable. Yes, enjoyable.

If you want a copy of your own Annual Review Discussion Guide – and you want to achieve those outcomes – shoot me an email and I’m happy to send it your way.

If you don’t reach out to me, no hard feelings. Just understand next time our paths cross, I may rate you a “Did Not Meet Expectations” in “Creativity & Problem Solving.”

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