Despite the events of 2020, the global economy – including the US – is projected to grow this year. This means that new companies will pop up, and existing organizations will become more complex. They may expand to different locations, develop new processes, and add nascent teams. The question remains: how can companies grow in a scalable way?

We may be biased here, but we believe that continuous performance management plays a huge role in helping organizations drive alignment and accountability during times of growth. The data speaks for itself:

• 69% of employees surveyed said that company-wide goal alignment is paramount to their success
• 72% said that constructive feedback helps their team execute on their business strategy more effectively
• Those who have visibility into other teams’ goals are 81% more likely to agree that there is good cross-functional alignment at their company

Given the power of performance programs, we’ve aggregated best practices to drive accountability, development, and alignment for growing organizations.

Drive Company-Wide Goal-Setting

The best way to boost alignment and ensure that employees are prioritizing the right projects is through goal-setting. We recommend starting with company-wide goals. Executives, finance leaders, and HR leaders should determine one or two key organizational objectives, such as “Increase ARR by 20%” or “Improve customer satisfaction by 30%”. These objectives should be cascaded so departments, teams, and individual contributors can support the goals. For best practices on how to successfully roll out company-wide goals, see this article from NextRoll.

We still recommend that employees have development-focused goals too. These personal objectives help employees build skillsets that can benefit their careers — and help fulfill company needs. More development best practices are available in this article.

Discuss Careers in 1:1 Meetings

Development and advancement opportunities are crucial for retaining top talent during growth periods. In fact, 34% of employees said they have left a job in the past because they wanted more career development opportunities. HR teams can support employee growth by developing career paths and offering learning programs. As your organization grows though, managers become an invaluable resource for scaling developmental conversations.

Equip managers for success with specific recommendations for career conversations. Should discussions happen annually, bi-annually, or quarterly? What topics should be covered? What resources can be provided to employees? HR teams can further guide a successful dialogue between managers and employees by providing curated Conversation Starters. Some of Reflektive’s career Conversation Starters are available below:

• What job activities have you enjoyed the most and found most interesting? 
• What are your career goals for the next 3-6 months? What about the next 1-2 years?
• How can I help you grow your career?

Encourage Continuous Feedback

Another way to scale employee development is with continuous feedback. Team members can gather helpful insights from managers, peers, and cross-functional colleagues to learn where they’re excelling, and what they can do to improve. A best practice is to request feedback after a work milestone. Some events that should be followed by feedback are available below:

• A new partnership is live
• A new product is launched
• Meaningful improvements have been made to internal technology or processes
• A deal is closed
• A customer renews or expands
• A new market is entered

Gather Employee Sentiment with Engagement Surveys

As your organization becomes larger and more complex, it may become more challenging to capture up-to-date employee sentiment. Enter engagement surveys. Surveys provide a scalable way gather insights in an ever-changing environment. What’s more, HR teams can focus on a specific domain (e.g., DEI) to gather data on that topic. If you’re looking to assess sentiment on performance programs, we recommend including the following questions in your survey:

• “I like our processes for reviews, feedback, and goal-setting.”
• “I know how to do well in my job.”
• “I am paid fairly for my job.”
• “I understand how my work is evaluated.”

Track Progress with People Analytics

While engagement survey data can give you powerful insights on how employees are feeling, a people analytics dashboard is invaluable for more specific insights on your performance programs. HR teams can track progress on the aforementioned programs – such as goal-setting and 1:1s – in a glance. By looking at adoption and utilization rates, HR teams can make informed decisions on launching internal campaigns, tweaking existing programs, and implementing other tactics to support their performance strategy.

Recommended metrics for HR teams looking to scale their programs include:

• Total active goals over time
• Goal completion rate over time
• Number of 1:1 conversations over time
• Performance ratings by department, team, or other demographic
• Feedback trends over time

Looking for more ways to support your growing company? Schedule a chat with an expert.

Communication is one of the biggest challenges that we see at companies today. Whether it’s leadership sharing major updates, managers having candid discussions on promotions, or colleagues sharing peer feedback, communicating effectively is often difficult to get right.

What’s more, organizational transparency plays a large role in key business outcomes, meaningfully impacting retention, engagement, and productivity:

• 70% of employees stated that they were most interested and engaged when their leaders communicated company information and results on a regular basis
• 35% of employees said they were likely to leave their company because of they don’t trust their manager
• 50% of employees felt that their employers were not giving them all the information they needed to be successful in their jobs

Results from Reflektive’s 2020 Performance Management Benchmark Report also indicate that employees aren’t receiving enough information from their company:

• Only 19% of employees agree that their organization is transparent about upward mobility opportunities
• Only 21% agree that their organization is transparent about potential salary freezes and pay cuts
• 25% of employees do not know how to request feedback at their companies

These data points contrast sharply with employee needs, which include more visibility. In the same benchmark report, Reflektive uncovered that employees want more support via:

• Consistent communication from leadership
• Consistent communication from colleagues
• All-Hands meetings
• Recognition for hard work and successes
• Regular feedback

So how can organizations provide consistent communication, including recognition and feedback? Our recommendations below include actionable steps that HR teams, leaders, managers, and employees can take to make their company a better place to work.

HR Best Practices

There are several policies and programs that HR teams can launch to drive organizational transparency. We recommend that companies of all sizes start with the following best practices:

• Have the right tools in place to boost communication. Ensure that all employees have access to email, a messaging platform such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, and a video tool to communicate effectively. Ideally, employees can provide recognition and plan for 1:1s on these platforms too. 
• Establish work norms. By setting guidelines early on, employees are more likely to stay connected and productive. We recommend the following best practices for all employees:
  • Use project planning tools such as Wrike, Asana, or Jira to clearly define and communicate responsibilities and timelines
  • Ask peers how they like to communicate, such as their preferred channels, level of detail, and level of informality
  • Instill your workplace culture by celebrating work anniversaries, business milestones, and other accomplishments
• Promote an open-door policy. Offering an open-door policy for communication is key to creating a psychologically safe workplace environment. Employees need to know that their voice will be heard when they approach their manager with whatever it is they are struggling with at work. Whether it’s a sexual harassment complaint, a request to work in a different office, or a roadblock with a project, it’s important to take on each conversation with empathy and an open ear.
• Use a goal management system to create accountability and transparency. Platforms for goal management enable employees to see key priorities for the organization, and learn what their leaders, managers, and colleagues are working on. What’s more, the ability to view goal completion rates helps employees have candid, productive conversations on what’s working and what isn’t, and helps team members improve their performance. For instance, Reflektive’s Goals solution enabled HelpSystems to achieve key organizational objectives through improved alignment and tracking; the company increased international software bookings by 30%, and boosted new product revenue from existing customers by $3 million.

Executive Best Practices

Leaders play a key role in shaping an organization’s culture of transparency. We encourage executives and HR teams to partner together to bring these practices to life:

• Hold regularly-scheduled All-Hands meetings to share updates. At Reflektive, we have a monthly All-Hands meeting that accommodates employees across different time zones. We’ll share major developments, and executives will highlight key accomplishments and learnings during the past month. We always make sure there’s time for Q&A, so that employees can ask questions that may be top-of-mind for their colleagues too.
• Gather regular feedback from employees. Executives can learn about employee sentiment after major events, as well as ongoing company programs and policies. These insights can help them continuously improve their communication, and they can learn how to better support their workforce during times of transition. At Reflektive, we use our engagement surveys to gather sentiment on leadership communication, and we also send polls after our All-Hands meetings to learn how we can continuously improve them.
• Schedule skip-level meetings. Leaders can further improve corporate transparency by having 1:1 meetings with managers and individual contributors. Not only do these syncs provide an opportunity for executives to share more information on their key priorities and projects, but leaders can also learn from employees on what’s going well, and areas of improvement for the company.
• Celebrate & recognize wins! Hard work and project milestones should be recognized to boost both visibility and morale. Use Slack / Microsoft Teams, email, and your public recognition wall to make those exciting moments visible to everyone. Companies can also glean meaningful business results with their recognition culture; Brad’s Deals’ new check-in and kudos programs helped decrease turnover by 76%!

Manager Best Practices

Managers are a key partner in scaling organizational transparency. They can communicate company-wide updates in a personalized way, and they shed more light on promotion and pay raise decisions. Some key best practices for managers are available below:

• Schedule recurring 1:1 meetings with all direct reports. There’s no better way to drive ongoing manager-employee communication than with weekly 1:1 meetings. Not only are 1:1s an excellent forum to discuss organizational updates, but they also enable managers to provide timely, relevant feedback. 1:1 meetings also build comfort levels in the manager-employee relationship, as both parties become accustomed to interacting and discussing a wide range of topics. Physicians Insurance encourages employees to cover professional growth and performance expectations in their 1:1 meetings.
• Hold 2-3 team standups each week. These team meetings provide support, alignment, and visibility. Managers can ask team members what they accomplished and what they’re working on now. Standups are particularly valuable when employees are remote, as they provide a forum for social connection too.
• Be transparent in performance conversations. While many organizations separate performance and pay conversations, transparency in both is critical. Share the criteria in which the employee was evaluated, and the specific reasons for decisions on the rating, promotion, and/or pay raise. This clarity will help instill fairness and transparency into the performance conversation.

Employee Best Practices

All employees can contribute to an open, accessible workplace culture! With feedback and regular communications, they can improve work life for themselves and their peers:

• Request and provide feedback after major work milestones. To boost professional growth and development, all employees should request and provide feedback from peers. The feedback will help people collaborate more effectively, and identify areas of improvement for future projects. Team members can request feedback after a new product is launched, a new partnership is live, or a deal is closed.
• Overcommunicate on collaboration tools. Staying connected and aligned can be challenging, especially in an era of remote work. Provide reminders of upcoming events and deadlines, and let team members know what you’re working on. In some collaboration tools, you can pin phone numbers, documents, and other helpful information for easy access! 
• Document everything and make it easily shareable. This helps your peers easily get caught up on your projects. At Reflektive, we ensure that most of our work is in the Shared drive so folks can access it, and we have a great record of our accomplishments over the years!

If your organization is looking to boost transparency, accountability, and alignment, schedule a consult with a Reflektive expert.

We’re excited to announce that Reflektive received seven Leader awards from G2, and the Silver award for Best Advance in Performance Management Technology from Brandon Hall Group. 

Brandon Hall Group has been in existence for 27 years, and it offers data, research, insights and certification to executives and organizations. The Excellence in Technology Award was given based on program design & delivery, measurable benefits, and overall impact.

G2 is the world’s largest tech review marketplace, with over 1 million reviews from users. The seven G2 Leader awards that Reflektive won span performance management and employee engagement, and include:

• Performance Management
• Employee Engagement
• Mid-Market Performance Management
• Mid-Market Employee Engagement

Per Barbara Competello, Chief Customer Officer at Reflektive, “We are very happy to be recognized for one of Reflektive’s core values: relentless customer commitment. Reflektive was built to drive outcomes that matter – including improvements in retention, engagement, and productivity – and receiving this validation from third parties and from our customers is always exciting to hear.”

If you’re interested in learning more about what Reflektive customers are saying, check out our G2 reviews.

Founded in 2016, Axios Media is committed to delivering smart, efficient news worthy of its readers’ time, attention, and trust. Axios has focused on performance management since it was founded, recognizing early on how important it is to grow and develop its employees. Our below Q&A with Hebba Youssef, Director of Talent Management, and Morgan Stanley, Associate Director of Talent Management, covers their data-driven approach to people programs, and why they decided to continue with performance reviews during today’s changing environment.  

Reflektive: Can you tell us about your role at Axios and how you support the company’s performance management programs?

Morgan: Hebba and I both wear many hats but my primary focus areas are onboarding, performance management, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). I’ve been with the company since 2017 and have been active in the evolution of our performance management programs. 

Hebba: I oversee the Talent Management function at Axios, meaning my scope of work encompasses every inch of the employee lifecycle. My passion is in learning and development – helping our folks grow and develop in their role, as a manager or individual contributor. My goal is to ensure every employee feels like they have the tools and resources they need to be successful in their role. 

Reflektive: Why did you decide to make a change to your performance management program?

Hebba: Our biggest challenges with our previous platform were: difficulty accessing and utilizing data, minimal ability to customize our review cycles, and our staff did not enjoy using it! Employee experience is everything to our team; so, if our folks didn’t like the tool, then we needed to find something they would enjoy using that would also result in a better experience for us as admins – which we found in Reflektive.

Morgan: After our first performance evaluation process in Reflektive in July, we received a lot of very positive feedback about how easy the tool was to use and how excited folks were to use this tool versus our old one. 

Reflektive: What drew you to Reflektive?

Hebba:  It was an extensive and thoughtful search that led us to Reflektive! We identified three main user groups –  employee, manager, and admin and – wrote requirements for each group. Our focus was always Audience First: what experience are our users going to have? We then reviewed a large number of platforms and disqualified any platform that did not meet the majority of our user’s needs. We decided to go with Reflektive for three key reasons:

• Product flexibility and breadth allowing us to make the tool impactful for our employees and admins.
• Ongoing Customer Support Manager support to help us configure a platform that served our organization. 
• Dashboards and reporting: we were impressed by all the data we’d have immediate access to. 

Reflektive: Can you tell us how you’re using the data from performance programs?

Hebba: I am a firm believer that in today’s world People/HR teams need to be data-driven in their approach to every decision they make; especially when it comes to growth and development. When we were searching for new tools to use, our main focus was ‘can we easily access and use our data?’. The data we get from Reflektive helps us make fair and equitable decisions as it relates to promotions, merit increases, and titling.

Morgan: We use the intelligence platform to confirm each employee has measurable goals that will help guide their performance through the next evaluation cycle and to also confirm each of our employees is receiving monthly developmental feedback and having growth conversations with their manager. I am particularly excited about the new evolutions of the intelligence platform that will make retrieving this data even easier. 

Reflektive: What changes, if any, did you make as a result of COVID-19?

Hebba: We started conversations in April to decide if we were going to move forward with our July evaluation process. We discussed at great length as a team what effects running an evaluation process amidst a pandemic might have on our employees. We concluded that our employees are doing amazing work and deserve recognition for their performance dating back to January 2020 – therefore, we decided to move forward with our review process. We had a couple of manager training sessions before our evaluation season and impressed upon our managers the importance of leading with empathy and grace during their evaluation conversations as everyone has been hit hard over the last few months for many and various reasons. 

Morgan: We talk a lot internally about the need to assume positive intent always and to move through conversations as colleagues with candor and respect. Our performance evaluations are no different — these programs are meant to support and grow our employees. We were pleased our messaging resonated with folks and that we were able to run a very successful evaluation process and provide very worthy promotions and raises this past July. 

We saw a strong completion rate almost all of our employees updated their goals into Reflektive shortly after the review. 

Reflektive: Thank you so much for sharing your data-driven approach and approach to your latest check-in. Last question, how has it been working with your CSM?

Morgan: Our CSM is awesome! She’s been so helpful in answering all our questions, and we have a lot. I know with our CSM, we can always count on a timely response and assistance! 

This fall, Reflektive won two accolades that mean a lot to us. We’ve been named a G2 Leader in Performance Management, and the Best Tech Workplace for Diversity by Tech In Motion. These awards say a lot about our values and what we continuously strive towards. Our key priorities are building a solution that our customers love, and improving diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at Reflektive.

The G2 leader designation builds on our market presence and high customer satisfaction. Reflektive has received over 400 reviews from verified users, with dozens of testimonials citing our value in driving organizational alignment. Our full list of reviews is available on Reflektive’s G2 page, but we’ve included some highlights below:

• “Keeps us on track to reaching our goals overall as a company. It makes your work more meaningful with instant feedback and recognition.”
• “I love the Outlook extension that allows me to view the goals of any employee, add/edit topics for upcoming 1×1 meetings (saving tons of money on post-its) and give them real-time feedback and potentially rewards points right there. 89% of our users have given feedback and 100% have received feedback in the first few months of use.”
• “Reflektive provides a user-friendly platform (both desktop and mobile) that creates a “space” for managers and employees to have continuous 1:1s, feedback, check-ins, and developmental conversations. Unlike other traditional performance management systems, Reflektive is built with the users in mind and supports end-to-end performance management processes from setting goals, 1:1s, check-ins, 360s, praise, peer feedback, to performance review.”

Similar to our passion for building a robust performance solution, we are equally dedicated to improving workplace diversity. This past year, we focused on employee connectedness, communication and our responsibility to our people and customers. Some of the initiatives that helped us build an inclusive culture include:

• Regularly-scheduled company, departmental, and 1:1 meetings to allow employees to listen to one another and speak their feelings. We’ve also hosted optional company Listening Circles. 
• Expanded employee mental health and well-being education, along with offering resources like EAP programs, mindfulness training and behavioral health solutions.
• On a monthly basis, we provide a company mental health day so all employees can take the day off to rest and focus on their well-being. Should an employee be on call, leadership has taken proactive measures to ensure they have a day off within a week of the date.

While 2020 has been a challenging year for everyone, we’re grateful to have supported customers, team members, and partners during this tumultuous time. If you’re interested in learning how Reflektive can help your company, schedule some time with an expert.

Now more than ever, performance programs play a crucial role in driving employee productivity and engagement. Processes for feedback, recognition, and 1:1s help workers stay connected and aligned.

Given the significant changes that leaders, HR teams and employees have experienced, Reflektive launched a 2020 Performance Management Benchmark Report to follow-up on our 2018 Report. With responses from 445 HR professionals and business leaders and 622 employees, the report provides helpful data on how HR teams are approaching their performance programs — and how employees feel about these programs. In addition to the current state of performance management, we’ve also included best practices from forward-thinking organizations. 

This report includes powerful insights to help HR teams identify performance trends among their peers. Readers will take away:

• Insights on performance reviews, ratings, and feedback
• Employee needs to stay productive and engaged
• Executive and employee sentiment on the future state of work

…and more. TPG (a Reflektive investor), Dropbox, and One Medical also share how to drive future organizational success.

Ready to see performance trends and how your company can better engage and motivate employees? Download the free report.

The events of 2020 have had a profound impact on how businesses operate. Specifically, companies have had to make major decisions on where and how employees work. Some firms have decided to keep employees at headquarters (HQ). Others have allowed workers to be remote while maintaining a HQ presence. And still other organizations have decided that their workforce should be entirely off-premises.

Regardless of the model that your company has selected, performance management plays a vital role in driving employee productivity and engagement during this uncertain time. Below are our recommendations on key performance management programs to prioritize based on your workforce model.

Significant HQ Presence

A significant HQ presence means that over 50% of employees are spending some percentage of their workweek at their headquarter location.

When to use this approach

An HQ-centric approaches make sense if:

• Local regulations permit your business to re-open
• Productivity and/or revenue is significantly higher when employees are in the office (recommended formulas for analyzing productivity and revenue are available in this blog post)
• Your company has resources to make the office safer with plexiglass shields, frequent sanitation, personal protective equipment, etc

Performance Management Best Practices

Per Megan Kusanovich on Reflektive’s Employee Success team, “Returning to the office during COVID-19 may cause a level of discomfort among some employees. Companies can alleviate some of this uncertainty by communicating regularly and remaining open to employee feedback.”

• Prior to returning to the office:
  • Run a survey to better understand employee needs and sentiment. Gauge employee comfort and desire to work from the office. 
  • Communicate expectations and guidelines on the return to the office. More guidance from the World Health Organization is available in this Q&A.
• At the office:
  • Leadership should share information regularly on any changes related to working from HQ. Weekly or bi-weekly all-hands meetings, company-wide emails, and intranet pages are great ways to reinforce key updates.
  • Managers should schedule weekly 1:1s with their direct report to check on employee stress and potential improvements to in-office work.
  • Send pulse surveys to HQ employees on a monthly basis to better understand what is working well and what can be improved.
  • Boost positive sentiment by encouraging employee recognition. Drive adoption by creating a recognition challenge! (More recognition best practices are available in Reflektive’s Guide to Recognition Programs).

Remote Workforce

A remote workforce means that over 50% of employees are working fully remotely.

When to use this approach

Remote work is beneficial when:

• There is a high risk that employees can contract COVID-19 — from the office or from commuting to the office
• Employees can work productively at home
• Employees prefer to work from home
• The additional costs to make your office safer for employees are exceedingly high or burdensome

Performance Management Best Practices

Per David Laszewski, Chief Sales Officer at Reflektive, “Staying aligned while the sales team is remote has been so important for us. We use 1:1s daily, and update goals on a monthly basis, to drive accountability and run improved sales processes that yield more wins.”

• Drive a culture of praise and development with recognition and feedback:
  • Plan lightweight, quarterly check-ins that cover performance and career development. After the check-ins, run a pulse survey to ensure that employees received value from the conversation.
  • Ensure employees can request and provide ad-hoc feedback to help them grow and develop
  • Encourage workers to provide recognition in their favorite apps, such as Slack, Gmail, Outlook, and Teams
• Boost alignment with frequent 1:1s and goal-setting:
  • 1:1s can cover work and personal conversations, since employees are lacking their usual social connections
  • Use goals to drive alignment as well — they help employees better prioritize their projects and use their time effectively

Regardless of the approach that your company takes, performance management enables managers and employees to stay better connected and aligned. Consistently gathering employee feedback – through pulse surveys and 1:1 conversations – helps employees feel heard and supported during this ever-changing time.

If you’re interested in boosting alignment and engagement with your performance programs, schedule a conversation with an expert. 

In the past year, Reflektive has witnessed some amazing results from our customers. HelpSystems grew revenue 30% with their Reflektive partnership. Brad’s Deals decreased turnover by 76% with improved check-in and recognition programs. 

Now, we’ve observed another impactful metric that showcases the power of performance management: employees at companies that use Reflektive report 58% higher productivity vs. their peer average. 

This higher productivity was noted in survey results from Reflektive customers (79% favorability) versus the general employee population (only 50% favorability). More details on general employee sentiment are coming soon in our 2020 PM Benchmark Report!

Read below on how performance programs impact productivity, and how you can build the right programs to enable your employees for success.

Correlations between performance management and productivity

We’ve observed a relationship between employee sentiment on performance management programs and employee productivity. For instance, employees are motivated to work harder when:

• The feedback they receive help them improve (3.6X more likely to work harder)
• They get meaningful recognition when they perform well (3.6X more likely to work harder)
• They like their processes for reviews, feedback, and goal-setting (2.9X more likely to work harder)

(Source available here.)

Megan Kusanovich on Reflektive’s Employee Success team elaborated: “When employees consistently receive recognition for their work and valuable feedback to improve performance, they know their company is committed to professional development. This makes employees feel more committed and engaged in their work.” 

Building programs that drive employee performance

While it’s clear that performance programs make a big difference in employee productivity, it’s less clear how to leverage them effectively. After partnering with hundreds of mid-size and enterprise companies over six years, we’ve observed success with the below strategies.

Recognition

Best practices for delivering meaningful recognition include:

• Keep it specific: By informing colleagues of specific actions that positively contributed to a project, they’ll know which behaviors to continue. 
• Tie it to your values: Seeing company values in employee kudos helps bring the values to life, and helps instill your company culture. 
• Make it visible: Encourage employees to share recognition publicly — this encourages peers to provide praise too. 
• Incorporate it into performance reviews: Knowing that praise from colleagues will be included in review cycles is added motivation to give kudos. Additionally, it saves time for managers and reduces recency bias during reviews! 

More recognition best practices are available in our Guide to Effective Employee Recognition Programs.

Feedback

Feedback is most valuable to employees when it is:

• HR-guided, but driven by employees
  • Programs are successful when HR teams have developed trainings and helpful collateral to drive feedback adoption. However, employees should be empowered to request feedback. 
• Constructive 
  • To ensure that feedback is perceived as helpful and productive, we recommend that feedback givers:
    • Are in a calm mental state: This will help them better empathize with the feedback recipient when they’re sharing the feedback.
    • Describe the employee’s behavior: Be fact-based rather than labeling or judging the behavior.
    • Share the impact of the behavior: How did it affect people and projects?
    • Give concrete recommendations on how to improve: Actionable steps will make the feedback more helpful to employees.
• Provided by multiple stakeholders
  • Peers and cross-functional partners observe different employee behaviors, strengths, and opportunities that should be communicated to the individual.

Performance Processes

Across all performance programs that your company rolls out, we recommend that HR teams set clear expectations with employees, and communicate regularly.

• Start with training: Educate all employees on the “why” and the “how” of your performance programs, e.g. why recognition is important, and how to give constructive feedback.
• Send an email follow-up: Link out to your slides or an intranet page with helpful resources. Share upcoming milestone dates (e.g., when goals need to be set or review forms need to be completed).
• Have HR teammates available for employee questions: Budget time for HR colleagues to support employees when new performance programs are rolled out.
• Capture learnings to continuously improve the process: Use a pulse survey or taskforce to gather employee sentiment on your new performance program. Leverage these insights to improve your performance program for the next cycle.

Employees clearly desire feedback, recognition, and other performance programs that help them learn and grow. By creating employee-centric processes, HR teams can drive ongoing improvements to employee motivation and productivity.

If you’re interested in crafting impactful performance programs, contact us here.

As HR teams around the world align and prioritize during this time, they’re re-thinking traditional performance programs. Many of them had 360 reviews scheduled, and are unsure how to proceed. Do they hold performance reviews as normal? Do they postpone reviews until the pandemic ends?

Reflektive has consulted with dozens of global customers on reviews during this time. Read more for our best practices and recommendations.

Before You Start…

If you decide to make any changes to your reviews, keep in mind employee expectations. Workers look to performance reviews for promotions, pay raises, and goal-setting. If these programs will be paused or altered with your new review cycle, inform employees at the get-go to better set expectations.

How to Develop the Right Program for your Organization

If your company has been impacted by the pandemic and recession, our recommendation is to simplify your reviews program. The current situation has made life for many employees more stressful and uncertain, and adding a 3-month review program may exacerbate their stress. Specifically, we recommend that companies:

• Adopt a shorter timeframe for their review cycle

• Simplify 360 reviews by limiting peer feedback to 1-2 employees, or only including peer feedback for specific cohorts (e.g., promotion-eligible employees)

By making the process faster and less complex, companies can show empathy for the challenges that many employees are facing.  And by holding reviews during this time, organizations can reinforce their commitment to employee growth and development.

Decide on the objective of your review

Before you start planning your review, think through what is most important to your company right now. Some questions that all companies should consider are:

• How has COVID-19 impacted my business?
• What are my strategic HR priorities? (e.g., retaining top talent, minimizing workforce disruption)
• What is our appetite for change at this time?
• What is the current state of our feedback culture?
• How should review data be used? (e.g., influencing promotions or raises)
• How should goals be used to evaluate performance?

Based on how Reflektive customers have responded to these questions, we’ve observed five common objectives for review cycles now:

–   Building a culture of feedback: Boost productivity and engagement with a holistic conversation that spans skills, goals, and career growth

–  Improving alignment: Ensure that all employees are working towards top-line business goals with frequent conversations on priorities

–  Developing careers: Motivate and retain talent with a conversation on skills and leadership opportunities

–   Improving performance: Empower employees by developing their competencies and helping them better align with company values

– Informing talent management decisions: Plan for pay raises and promotions by collecting formal qualitative and quantitative data on employee performance

Include the optimal questions for your review type

Once you’ve identified the right review for your workforce, you can start the next phase of question development. In general, it’s best to keep your form short and limit it to 4-7 questions. We recommend the following self-assessment questions based on your review type:

• Building a culture of feedback:
  • Appreciation: What are 3-5 accomplishments you’re proud of?
  • Alignment & Evaluation: 
    • Think about your main goals. How have you performed relative to these goals in the past quarter?
    • Think about the main responsibilities of your role. How have you performed relative to these responsibilities in the past quarter?
  • Coaching: What is the most important thing you could have done at least 10% better last quarter? What would you do differently next time?
  • Career: What do you want your next career step to be? What step can you take to get there?
• Improving alignment:
  • Have your goals changed or should they change?
  • What went well this quarter? 
  • What could have gone better in the last quarter? List 1-2 learnings that can be applied going forward.
  • What help do you need to make better progress toward your goals?
  • Manager: Provide 1-2 pieces of feedback that could help this employee make better progress toward their goals.
• Developing careers:
  • How did you grow your career here last quarter?
  • What knowledge, experiences, and/or collaboration opportunities would benefit you in the next quarter?
  • What do you want your next career step to be? 
  • What steps can you take to get there?  What support do you need?
• Improving performance:
  • Manager evaluates each value and/or competency and how frequently the employee shows the value

• Informing talent management decisions
  • What goals did you accomplish?
  • What goals were you unable to achieve?
    • How will you tackle them differently in the future?
  • What skills would you like to use more of in your role?
  • In an ideal world, what would your next role look like?

Additionally, if employees are providing peer feedback, we recommend using the “traffic light model” of “start”, “stop”, and “continue” questions. Some sample questions include:

• Start: What could this person start doing that would benefit their career and the company?
• Stop: What could this person stop doing to benefit their career and the company?
• Continue: What does this person do well?

More question ideas are available here.

Carve time to sit down and deliver the review

Talking in real-time – whether that’s in-person or on video – helps managers better understand the context of their employee’s responses. Additionally, managers can provide helpful feedback on areas that employees are looking to improve.

Other Best Practices to Complement Reviews

Performance reviews aren’t the only way to help employees stay aligned and engaged. We recommend the below programs to complement reviews and equip workers for success.

Encourage more frequent 1:1 conversations

Weekly or bi-weekly 1:1s with managers help employees work towards the right objectives. While we generally recommend that 1:1s are employee-driven, manager-driven 1:1s are also appropriate for driving alignment and following up on important business updates.

Boost company-wide recognition

To drive awareness of wins across the organization, we recommend more frequent employee recognition. HR teams can create a contest or a challenge to encourage kudos from workers.

Encourage employee-driven feedback

Between review cycles, employees can proactively request feedback from managers, peers, and cross-functional colleagues. This will help them grow professionally and develop core skills. Additionally, if your HR team is overburdened and cannot run reviews now, employee-driven feedback can replace reviews.

Modify goals as needed

Finally, to ensure that employees are set up for success in this ever-changing environment, enable workers to adjust goals downward if needed. We’ve seen this done at many companies for sales professionals, who may have difficulty hitting their previous quotas, and customer success managers, who may be experiencing more churn outside of their control. Additionally, if it’s too difficult for certain employees to work towards numeric results, managers can create qualitative scorecards to reward employee behaviors. 

If you’re interested in consulting with an expert on performance review options for your company, contact us here.

The role of teamwork in the workplace continues to expand, with more than 81% of employees frequently working in teams. However, many organizations still struggle to drive effective collaboration and alignment both within and across departments. Why?

First, traditional performance technologies and programs have historically centered on the individual, rather than the team. Second, those same technologies focus on past performance, rather than continuous improvements.

According to our latest research, “The Future of Teamwork,” 69% of employees surveyed said that company-wide goal alignment is paramount to their success. However, 53% recognize they have zero to limited visibility into other team’s goals.

Team alignment and visibility can help individuals find meaning and purpose in their work, as well as see their direct impact on business results.

We are thrilled to announce a new set of products along with several enhancements to help organizations overcome these challenges, and build high-performing teams. Our new Team Performance Management solution empowers teams to:

• Build teams for projects, cross-functional groups, and more
• Align around shared goals and outcomes with Team Goals
• Drive a culture of continuous improvements with Team Feedback
• Collaborate with teammates and improve communication through structured 1:1s

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IS A TEAM SPORT

Reflektive’s 4 Key Principles to Team Performance Management

Teams come in all shapes and sizes
When it comes to teamwork, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all performance management strategy. Each team faces unique challenges, based on the industry they are in, their company’s size, and even the type of projects they are working on. Your performance management platform must be designed to empower cross-functional, project-based, dynamic teams to drive a culture of continuous improvement. Whether you’re running ad-hoc feedback cycles, tracking team goals, or enabling team members to have ongoing performance conversations, the approach should be holistic and flexible.

Productive Teamwork Starts with Visibility
69% of employees surveyed said that company-wide goal alignment is paramount to their success. Yet, over 50% of employees say that they have limited to zero visibility into other teams’ goals. Poor visibility and alignment put business execution at risk. Organizations can change this by enabling goal visibility and alignment at the company, team, and individual levels, to optimize business execution.

The most recent enhancements to Reflektive’s goal management solution allow teams to align on shared outcomes more effectively by supporting the way in which they work today. The new Team Goals dashboard provides employees with visibility into strategic initiatives being supported by any given team across their organization, whether these are centered around departmental, cross-functional, or project-based efforts.

Continuous Feedback and Improvement
High-performing teams run on feedback. 74% of employees agree that high-performing teams share constructive feedback and commit to continuous improvements, and over 72% say that constructive feedback helps their team execute on their business strategy more effectively.

Whether upon completion of a project or as a way to track progress, the ability to get timely, constructive, and structured feedback can turn business issues into business wins. Only with continuous feedback can teams identify areas of improvement, and design action plans to address business issues early on.

An example of how this would look like in real life is Reflektive’s new Feedback solution. Among other things, it empowers teams to take control over their own development and growth by allowing them to run feedback cycles autonomously, to get the structured, and constructive feedback they need to drive continuous improvements. Employees can request feedback about themselves or initiate project-based feedback cycles for everyone on the team to give and receive feedback from one another. Managers and coaches also have the opportunity to request feedback about their direct reports, to learn how to better support and coach them.

Scale 1:1s Across your Team
One of the most pervasive obstacles for successful teamwork is communication. Help improve communication with structured, and more productive discussions.

However, having the right conversations might not be enough if those are not happening at the right time and on an ongoing basis. By encouraging team members to have recurrent 1:1s conversations, you’ll be making sure critical topics are addressed in a timely manner.

With Reflektive’s 1:1s solution, team members can now have the right conversations, at the right time, and develop action plans to address issues early on.

In business, like in team sports, success depends on thoughtful planning and execution. By embracing visibility, continuous feedback, and accountability, and bringing those values to life with Reflektive, your team can have an even bigger impact in driving company success.

Learn more about how Reflektive can empower team performance conversations at scale. Reach out to our team today to get a demo.