Performance Reviews

Learn about performance reviews and peer feedback.

How to prepare for performance reviews

Now that we’ve addressed a selection of common misconceptions about performance reviews, let’s get to business. In this section, you’re going to learn exactly how to prepare everything you need to make your performance reviews a success.

The first question to address is how often performance reviews should be happening. I recommend every six months, once at the end of the year (say, around December) and once in the middle of the year (say, around June). There are a few reasons for this:

  • Waiting an entire year between performance reviews is way too long. Conversely, a review every quarter feels too often. Six months is long enough for you and your staff to have done a substantial amount of work to reflect on and for everyone to have progressed toward previous goals.

  • Two checkpoints a year increase the chances you have to course-correct anyone that needs assistance with their performance or direction before it’s too late.

  • The end-of-year review will most likely have the pay element looming, and we’ll look at some techniques for dealing with that. The mid-year review allows a touchpoint purely around performance without having to worry about the added complexity of pay.

Even if you find that your company only does ...