I should have titled this post:  Beauty and the Beast. Beauty; if you use assessments during (what is perceived as) the Beast of a performance review process things will go a whole lot smoother.

There are many different types of assessments that provide various information about our work preferences, behavioral style and our dominant thinking style. The process I plan to outline for you today focuses specifically on how you as a manager of people can learn what your employees behaviors, motivators and strengths are to aid you during the performance review process.

1. Create a job benchmark for each “role” on your team or in your organization. The job benchmark sets the stage for what top competencies, motivators and behaviors are right for that specific role in your organization. This process  will be unique to every organization. The accounting role in your company will have different competencies, motivators and behaviors than the accounting role at your competitor. READ: I did not say skills. Once you have this information you can now assess all your accounting people against the accounting benchmark.
2. Determine where each person in the role meets the competencies, motivators and behaviors OR where their gaps are.
3. Once you know where the gaps are then you will be able to provide your employee with a relevant development plan to help them close the gaps and continue to build on their strengths.

The performance review process does not have to be super complicated and it’s still a mystery to me why most companies over complicate it. Just follow the three little steps above and I promise you will be much happier, your reviews will go much smoother and you will no longer have to dread the performance review process.

If you need help getting started, contact us. Putting together easy people processes for small to medium sized companies is our specialty.