One of questions I often get ask is, how often should I do the review? And depending who you talk to there are many, many different opinions. After this video, you will be able to, understand a frequency and timing of reviews. Let me give you some options that you might look at. One is the Annual review. Most of us use this, we're comfortable with the process. It comes once a year, we look back. It's like we would do with an anniversary looking back on the year. Other's say we should do Semi-annually, that annually is just not enough to make a difference with the employees. And with changes going on, maybe we have to tweak that document a little bit. Others say Quarterly. So these are three major options that you can use. What I would always recommend is that certainly the Annual one is helpful for legal purposes, administrative purpose, we talk about. But having semi-annual or quarterly touch-ins are very important. We also have talked about to some degree the process of the informal review. So whether you have informal reviews on an ongoing basis or not, you should have some sort of process which where you sit down, fill out the forms, set the goals, and review the data. How often would depend on you preference and perhaps your company culture. Then there is, when do I have it? Again there is no write or wrong answer on these but let me give you some options to think about. Some organizations like to do it on an Anniversary date. So, if I'm hired on the first of July then every year we would review my data. See how I did for that year. And the advantage is that it is kind of a nice celebratory time to review how I've done. I've always liked to have it in the Fiscal year. This certainly ties into the budgets and especially if there's compensation decisions linked is the nice time to maybe look at that, that's an option you have. Others look at the Year End. Typically, at Year End, we've set goals for the year, we have new goals and objectives for the year. And tying the reviews into the Year End or the goal setting process is a very nice thing to do. So these are three definitive options, again depending on your culture the size of your organization and perhaps these are all ones that could be considered. Let me throw one more in there as more of a philosophical one. This is called the Common Window. You can use a common window approach with year end and fiscal. Let me define what I mean by Common Window. The Common Window process is when you do all the reviews In your organisation, or department all at one time. And the advantage of this Common Window is I get the opportunity to look at all my employees at the same time, and review their performance all at once. And sort of get a feel of, who are my star performers, who might be my average performers etc. It gives some definite benefits. It's also very helpful when looking at compensation. Because you can really look at who deserves the rewards based on how they perform. So consider this Common Window approach. The negatives and complaints I get from managers on this is that it's a lot of work. I have ten people, maybe, so for the next week I'm just doing a lot of reviews. But the positive is you get immersed in it. You get to look at your employees all at one time, and you really get a good look at it. This is the preference I usually use. And, again, whether you tie it to your year end or your fiscal year, is depending on your organization. And again, Anniversary Dates, I've seen this used with small organizations where they really don't have a lot of employees. And that tends to be a nice touch for them. So base on your culture, your size and other factors in the organization, you decide which one is most effective for you. Let me ask you a question over here and give you a little quiz before we go. True or false. Performance reviews are for the benefit of employees only? If you said true, you would be wrong. This is false. It's really for the organisation, and the manager, and the team, and the customers, it's really for the benefit of all stake holders. The employee involvement is not recommended because they may disagree. This is also false, you want to have involvement and commitment if you want them a good solid review process. Reviews should be done only in annual basis for consistency. This is also true or false depending on how you look at it. But I would say this is false, consistency is not an issue. The frequency of which you have it should be based on your culture, and ongoing ones, quality and semi-annually are fine. So, you don't need to do these for consistency, do it for culture. Reviews can be an effective motivational tool when done well. This is absolutely true. If you did a good review with people, and you've challenged them and motivated them, and got them on a course correction if they haven't done well. Praised them if they've done well, it is wonderful. And review data is mainly for administrative purposes. While administrative purposes are important, this would be false. It is heavily important to use all data for development purposes as well, both individually and from a corporate standpoint.
