How to Prepare for a Performance Review at Work
A performance review can be scary. It can feel like your whole career depends on it – or at least this year's bonus, or next year's salary increment. The truth is: if you're even having a performance review, then the chances are you work for a company that cares about developing its staff. You're already in a good place. This is your chance to make the most of it.
Start At The Beginning
The time to start preparing for your review is right after the last one. Be sure you know exactly what is expected of you during the coming year. Do you have competencies that you have to demonstrate? These may be technical capabilities or more esoteric corporate values. Do you have a set of targets or objectives to be achieved? Or a combination of both competencies and targets?
If you're unsure of what they are and how they will be measured, find out! You have to know what you are being measured against before you start.
Gather Your Evidence
Throughout the year (or whatever review period your firm has), as you go about your day-job, gather your evidence. Keep track of your progress against your targets. Review your competency level. Don't expect someone else to do this for you – it's your career, your salary, your future.
Are you meeting your targets, exceeding them, or falling short? Be honest with yourself. It's the first step to addressing your weaknesses and singing your praises.
Where you're meeting or exceeding the standards or targets, write down your evidence. Keep copies of feedback from colleagues, customers or suppliers – whoever you interact with. Keep track of the numbers, the deadlines met, the output achieved.
Where you're falling short (and be honest, you will sometimes, nobody's perfect) try to analyse why that is. Maybe you need some additional training. Maybe you don't have the tools to do the job. Maybe you just got it wrong this time. The important thing is to be honest with yourself and work out what would enable you to perform better next time. What could (must?) you do yourself – and what could your manager do to help?
You can do this immediately in the run up to the Review itself, but it's easier if you get into the habit of collating relevant information as you go along.
What do you want?
Knowing what your employer expects of you is the first step. The second is: what do you expect of yourself? Again, be honest: is this a career or just a job?
Do you want to exceed all of your targets, garner the pay rises and bonuses (assuming such are available)? Are you looking for promotion – or to extend your role or influence in other ways?
Or do you just want to do the job to an acceptable standard and go home? Despite what you might have heard there is nothing wrong with this. Not everyone wants to set the world on fire, and nor should they.
Knowing what you want helps define what other supporting information you might wish to take into your review.
If your aim is promotion or a pay rise, you need to demonstrate not only that you're exceeding your own targets but that you know what the next level will entail and how close you are to meeting those requirements. Check it out. Ask for the role spec, talk to people doing that job about the challenges involved.
If your aim is to be better at what you're already doing and feel training will help: plan it. Find the course; identify an appropriate colleague to shadow; read the books. Work out what it will cost. Work out what the benefit will be: which bits of your job will you do more efficiently as a result, how much time will that save, what's the cash equivalent to the firm? You cost them more than your salary, but for this exercise a crude calculation on your hourly salary will do.
If you're serious about your own self-development (and you should be) then consider funding courses or buying the books yourself and enquiring about possible reimbursement, rather than asking for funds up-front. It shows commitment and that might make the difference. Be willing to negotiate: half the cost is better than none, a deferred payment depending on showing the benefit is better than a straight 'no'. Worst case scenario: you spend some money on your own education which makes you much more employable and promotable.
If you simply want to demonstrate you're meeting the standard – be prepared to defend the need for "worker bees". All companies need people who are committed to doing what they do, without necessarily wanting to climb the ladder. Work out the importance of the job you're doing, and be prepared to show pride in doing it well. There is no such thing as "just" a cleaner – imagine what our offices, hotels or factories would be like without them.
Get a game plan!
In the couple of weeks leading up to the Review, work out your strategy. How you decide to play it will depend entirely upon how well you're doing and what your personal objectives are.
Two things to remember about a Performance Review:
1. It is all about you, and
2. You are not on trial!
Whatever the circumstances, resolve to take full personal responsibility for your performance. Never blame anyone else or the lack of systems or equipment or even the stupidity of the target for you inability to meet it.
All of those things may have had a part to play – but the 'blame game' won't work. Turn it around and seek help:
"I really struggle with difficult internal clients, can you give me any pointers on better ways to interact" – comes across much more positive than "Fred is a complete jerk, if he doesn’t keep up his end of the bargain, how'm'I s'pposed to hit the numbers?!""Given that the budget doesn't allow for a complete new project management software package, I could really use some training on how to better use what we've got" – shows more business awareness than "you can't expect me to keep track of all this stuff without a decent computer system.""I know we agreed on it, but in retrospect, I really don't know what else I could have done to meet that target…" … well, you get the picture.
This is where preparation can really help. What you're doing is looking at issues that are likely to be raised, and being ready with possible solutions for them. In effect, you're giving your boss a "get out"… and, unless you really are a waste of space, then a "get out" – a way to show you (and therefore them) in a positive light – is what your boss really wants.
On the other side of the coin, if you are doing brilliantly, don't be afraid to say so. "Blowing your own trumpet" doesn't come naturally to everyone, but you can't assume that a busy manager will have noticed your unobtrusive, totally efficient contribution to their team success. Tell them. Show them.
Highlight where you're going above and beyond. Be careful not to be arrogant about this, simply state the facts. Another word of caution on this one: you won't get brownie points for doing half of the boss's job, if it's at the expense of doing your own. Meet your own targets first before taking on anyone else's.
The Day of the Review
Make sure you turn up on time and with all of your notes in concise order. Be calm, be confident. You're ready for this.
What if the company isn't enlightened?
It is just possible that your firm is purely numbers driven and performance reviews are just an opportunity for complaints about unmet targets, no matter what other good stuff got done.
If that's the case: pretend it isn't. Pretend that your job really is about all the other things and prepare accordingly. You never know, you might just change their mind about the point of the review. And if not, well, you'll have boosted your own ego, and written half of your résumé for applying to work for a more enlightened company.
Remember above all else: this is your review. Make it work for you.
