6 ways you could be undermining your own business…

As a business owner, you already know the importance of recruiting capable people and providing them with the training and tools they require to do the job effectively.

To grow these people and to ensure that they are performing to expectations and meeting targets, you can use an effective performance review as a basis for discussion.

Many employees view their annual appraisals with dread and apprehension, leading to an appraisal which fails to motivate and work effectively for both manager and employee.

Your job as a business owner is to see the review as an opportunity. If you do, so will your team.

Very often performance reviews fail to work effectively because an employer may do one of the following things:

• move or reduce the time for the review
• discuss grievances that could and should have been discussed before this time
• use the time to discuss pressing work issues rather than focusing on the reason for the meeting – the development of the employee
• not prepare for the appraisal with working history and areas for discussion – both positive and negative
• not follow up on the actions and measures agreed in the appraisal
• fail to deliver any training or support needs agreed in the appraisal

All the above means that the employee becomes disenchanted, regarding the review process as a threatening situation which they distrust.

Performance reviews should be viewed as an opportunity – a chance for one-to-one time that you likely rarely have – and the time set aside for these should not be compromised in any way.