As we are approaching the end of the year, business owners and managers need to wrap up the year with necessary performance and efficiency improvements. A major contributing factor to performance and efficiency improvement is year-end reviews. There are two reviews to think about at the end of the year: department reviews and employee reviews.
Conducting Departmental Performance Reviews
Department reviews are performance reviews for an entire department. Leading department reviews allow you to review and analyze each department’s processes, successes and failures, opportunities and challenges, and future goals within the company.
A department review consists of the following factors:
- SWOT analysis
- Review departmental KPIs for the year
- Discuss what worked well in the last year
- Discuss what did not work well
- Discuss what are the upcoming growth areas for the next year
- Collect positive and negative feedback from all employees in the department
- Identify goals and objectives for the next year
By assessing each department, business owners and managers can focus on performance and process improvements. The goal here is to increase efficiency. While productivity is great, productivity only focuses on the amount of work someone gets done. On the other hand, efficiency focuses on the amount that gets done in the least amount of time. Time is of the essence because time costs business owners money.
After gathering and reviewing data from a departmental review, discuss the following points to improve efficiency within the department:
What to improve: Analyze your processes. Hone in on the major pain points within the department. What do employees find most frustrating? Is it inputting data multiple times? Or is it a lack of communication from their peers?
How to improve: Once you have analyzed your processes and figured out the major pain points, fill in the gaps. Do your due diligence to find the best solution for the problem. Consider adding automation where necessary if the problem wastes time inputting data multiple times.
Set any goals: Document and train your team on your new processes. Communicate the department’s goals, provide an implementation period for your team, and set them up for success.
Conducting Employee Performance Reviews
The employee performance review is an assessment of an employee to evaluate their performance, challenges, weaknesses, and areas of improvement. This review is an opportunity for employees and managers to give and get constructive feedback. Constructive feedback is essential in improving performance and business processes. Check out our blog post on the importance of constructive feedback in the workplace.
Conduct an annual performance review for each employee by discussing the following points:
The employee’s well-being: Care about your team! Otherwise, why should they care about you and your company? Is anything going on in life that may affect work? Offer support and resources if needed.
The employee’s accomplishments: Acknowledge the employee’s incredibly hard work and any achievements for the year.
The employee’s responsibilities: Reiterate the expected job duties. What else is the employee doing that is above and beyond the expected responsibilities? Discuss if the employee is underperforming or not meeting the expected job duties.
The employee’s areas of improvement: Remember, it is more economical to keep your current staff than to fire, rehire, and re-onboard new employees. So, unless an employee has done something severe and unacceptable, offer solutions to improve the employee’s performance conversationally and set specific goals for that improvement. These solutions can be:
- Additional training
- Tips for productivity and efficiency
- Automation suggestions
- Tools or software suggestions
The company’s current and future priorities: What areas will the company shift to improve processes and efficiency? How will these changes affect the employee’s job responsibilities?
Employee feedback: Always take employee feedback seriously. After all, employees are the ones working and following your company’s processes. So they will know what works well, what needs improvements, and what has to go.
Boost Company Morale
Performance reviews are important to ensure the company’s standards and goals are set amongst employees. So, when you are conducting these reviews, continue to keep communication with your team open and flowing. Not only will your team appreciate the open flow of communication, but you can also take the opportunity to boost company morale through new processes when considering their feedback.
Check out our YouTube video on how Netflix changed its workplace culture to increase employee performance and boost company morale. See how you can implement their best practices to help your business thrive.