It’s time for mid-year reviews. Is your company taking advantage of this midpoint to check in with employees on goal progress? Maybe now is the time to start. After all, mid-year reviews are the best way to check in on your workforce’s productivity, efficiency and career goals. Consider the following tips when it comes time to conducting a mid-year performance review:

  • Send Reminders Before the Review — Eliminate confusion or scheduling mishaps by proactively informing your employees about upcoming mid-year performance reviews, as well as what they should expect and how to come prepared.
  • Review Employee Files — Make an effort to take a peek into the employee’s files, ensuring that you are giving a full and comprehensive review, avoiding redundancy by focusing on the employee’s most recent activity.
  • Make the Review a Discussion — Reviews should revolve around the performance and abilities demonstrated by your employees. Create an open discussion by allowing employees to take part in it as a way for your employees to address questions or concerns. This small change will help improve your company culture, organizational structure and work environment.

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  • Take Generous Notes to Guide the Review — For some, getting off-topic during conversation is second nature and inevitable. By jotting down notes diligently and consistently will ensure that your conversation will stay on track and remain relevant to the review. Taking note of any ideas, questions or main points you would like to make will also help as a reference for the next performance review and will speed up the review process.
  • Be Upfront and Clear During Critique — Be direct when analyzing and evaluating your team members. Laying out the structure of the review prior to the meeting may help to clarify the purpose of the points that need to be made. Be specific and clear about points to improve upon and avoid “sugar coating” their weaknesses by inserting the criticism between some of their strengths. Not only can this be confusing, it can also be misconstrued, resulting in the employee feeling unheard or unvalued. Reduce this confusion by laying out both weaknesses and strengths separately and plainly.
  • Highlight Development Opportunities — Following the criticism, define opportunities that are available to strengthen and grow your employees’ careers. Eliminate the skills gap by offering the professional development resources that are necessary to complete employee training, gain job-related knowledge and improve their productivity or quality of work.
  • Offer Yourself as a Resource — Make yourself available as a resource and an opportunity for learning in order to reduce pressure on employees. Allow them to feel free to contact you without any ramifications. Promoting and cultivating an environment where talent can access and utilize managers can help improve retention and succession rates.

BirdDogHR is a talent management solution provider with years of experience in helping skilled trades companies improve their performance strategies. BirdDogHR knows how crucial it is to conduct performance reviews to ensure employee success and productivity to reduce turnover. To see the BirdDogHR Performance module in action, schedule a demo. For more information, contact us.

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