7 Tips to Help You Prepare for a Performance Review 

1. Block off the proper amount of time in advance.

It’s important to acknowledge performance evaluations take longer than an average meeting. I suggest blocking off two hours to conduct the meeting. 

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 Due to the amount of prep work involved when it comes to conducting performance evaluations, it’s important to schedule the meeting at least 2 weeks in advance to give both yourself and your employee an adequate amount of time to assemble the necessary data.

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 For remote teams, the best practice is to discuss employee availability ahead of time (i.e. via daily stand-up meeting, or through work messaging apps) and then send an email invite to your online performance review. 

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2. Gather feedback colleagues.

Ask for feedback from colleagues of the employee being evaluated. This is also referred to as the 360-degree feedback method which is a professional feedback system that asks coworkers (led by their manager) to provide constructive feedback on an individual team member’s performance. 

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When you collect 360-degree feedback, it’s essential to review the assessments in advance of your performance evaluation with your employee. Clarify any concerns with the evaluator and look for patterns in their responses to discuss during the meeting. 

To collect feedback, send out an email to a set of three to five colleagues asking them to evaluate the employee. You can ask specific questions like the ones provided below, or you can do the Start-Stop-Continue feedback approach.  

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When asking for feedback, set a deadline in your request that gives them plenty of time to fit the additional task into their schedule. Don’t be afraid to send them a reminder a few days before the deadline. 

3. Ask the employee to evaluate themselves. 

In preparation for the performance review, ask your employee to do their own self evaluation. 

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Self-evaluations allow you to see their side of the story and shows that you care about what they have to say. It also allows them to feel that they’ve been heard which will ultimately make them more receptive to constructive feedback.

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We’ve designed our online performance evaluation tool to include a self-evaluation component you can share with your employee prior to complete before your meeting. 

You can access the free performance evaluation document here.

4. Review and compare your evaluation with their self-evaluation.

Review the job description of the employee’s role. What tasks are they held responsible for and what expectations should they be meeting? 

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Then review the employee’s job performance over the past year and make use of a quick compare and contrast table. See where the employee has been meeting or exceeding expectations and then decide where they have been falling short of expected responsibilities.  

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By comparing an employee’s performance to their job description, you are able to objectively gauge how effectively this employee reaches their objectives and what areas of their work need improvement. 

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5. Be ready with specific examples. 

It’s important to ensure that you have facts to back up your arguments, especially when giving feedback.

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If you feel your employee is under-performing in a specific area, be ready to have examples of their work that shows this. 

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For example, if you have an employee who consistently struggles to end a sale with customers, show them what their expected commission should be and how they have fallen short. 

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At the same time it is vital that you’re able to provide positive feedback for your employees as well. Be ready with some specific examples of positive performance outcomes. This can be anything from a successful bug fix in a line of code to a positive review from a customer. 

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If your organization works remotely, your employee’s communications are logged. If they are in tech support, for example, listen to a few of their calls prior to the meeting and provide specific feedback on their customer service. Alternatively, you can create a folder of screenshots where you capture their “all-star” moments throughout the year. These could include going above and beyond to help a colleague, or fixing a bug before it came to a customer’s attention. 

6. Guide your employees towards professional development. 

Although an employee may not be perfect, they can always get better. 

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Improvements to their work performance can often be addressed through training, education, and/or special projects. 

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Don’t be afraid to have employees take time to learn on the job or help support them in taking classes to improve their skills. This will not only help your employee develop their skills, but it will also be beneficial to your business as you will see their professional skill development show up in their ability to produce higher quality work. 

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If your organization works remotely, suggest webinars and online classes your employee can  attend. Udutu is a great example of an online training platform that you can use for your remote employees. 

7. Prepare for compensation and promotion conversations in advance. 

This is a topic that is bound to arise during your  performance evaluation meeting so it’s best to prepare for it in advance. 

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For this step, start by asking your own supervisor what options you can offer your employee so you can respond to their requests in real time. 

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While it may be tempting to have this discussion through email on a remote team, remember it is always best to meet face-to-face when discussing money. 

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Use these seven tips when conducting your next online performance review meeting for the best results. 

7 Common Cognitive Biases and How to Avoid Them

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To get the most out of employee performance reviews it’s important to be as objective as possible when conducting them. The best way to do that is to avoid biases that cloud our judgement and yield inaccurate results. Below I provided you a list of the seven most common biases, examples of what they may look like, and simple strategies you can use to avoid them. 

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 In remote work, it’s especially important to be aware of these biases because they become more prominent when there is a  lack of non-verbal cues. 

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 1. Horns effect 👿

This basis occurs when you form a negative assumption based off of very little information. 

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In the case of the ‘horns effect’ you base your judgement off of someone from one single negative trait and continue to assume the worst of them. A good example of this is assuming that someone who is overweight is also lazy. 

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This kind of bias causes you to rate your employees in a worse light based on a singular negative trait. 

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One method of avoiding the horn effect is to review the notes you have taken regarding the employee’s job performance throughout the year so that you can compare both positive and negative aspects of performance. 

2. Halo effect 😇

Similar to the horn effect, the halo effect is also an assumption reached with very little information, but instead of being overly negative, it’s overly positive. 

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Rather than assuming the worst of someone, you put them on a pedestal that they don’t deserve to be on and end up over rating an employee that hasn’t earned it. 

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An example of the halo effect would be assuming that a good looking person is also incredibly intelligent. 

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When trying to avoid the halo effect look to see how much variation in feedback there is among colleagues of this employee and ask yourself why that might be? The key is to keep an eye out for reviews that may be skewed in the wrong direction. Again, also be sure to compare past negative and positive performance to see how the two balance each other out. 

3. Overly critical 🧐

While it’s important to hold your teammates to a high standard, it’s also important that you don’t set the bar so high it’s impossible to reach. 

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Assuming that your employees are going to be absolutely perfect in every task they take on is both unrealistic and unfair. 

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You need to understand and accept that your teammates are human and that they’re going to make mistakes. Don’t act like this is the end of the world, instead take the moment as a chance to help them learn and develop as an employee. 

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One example of when a manager may be overly critical is getting upset at a new hire that made a data entry mistake because they don’t fully understand the system’s programming yet. 

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You can avoid being overly critical by acting  compassionate instead. Try to understand where your employee is coming from and what might have got in the way of their success. You can tell them what went wrong, but also t explain you’re there to help them improve. 

4. Overly lenient 🤷

Although it’s important not to be too critical of your employees, it’s also important to ensure they live up to their responsibilities and objectives within your company, otherwise why are they still on your team? 

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An example of being too lenient is letting an employee repeatedly get away with missing deadlines. 

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Sometimes giving feedback can feel like you’re being rude or disrespectful, but in fact it’s quite the opposite. By giving your employee proper feedback and constructive criticism you’re helping develop their professional skills and helping them grow within the company. 

5. Cookie Cutter 🍪

Management isn’t a cookie cutter position. By that, I mean you can’t adhere to the practice of ‘one size fits all’ to how you manage individual members of your team.  

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The thing about people is that we’re all different in our own quirky way which means you can’t expect to treat everyone the same and get the same result. 

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Certain people are going to require support in ways that others don’t. As a manager it’s essential you don’t treat all of your employees the exact same way, otherwise, you fall into the trap of the cookie cutter bias. 

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Reminding yourself that different employees need different things from you based on their personality and capabilities is the best way to avoid the cookie cutter bias. 

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Remember, as a manager it’s your job to help your people thrive by accommodating what they need while also using their strengths to help propel them forward. 

6. Recency Error ❌

Recency error is the tendency to let recent events (whether they be positive or negative) cloud the judgement of an employee’s performance.  

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These errors tend to happen when a big project finishes with great success or crashes and burns just before an employee's performance review. 

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For this reason it’s essential to keep accurate records of employee performance throughout the year as it will help give you a realistic view of the employee’s overall performance over the entire year. 

7. Middle of the Road 🛣️

Otherwise known as the central tendency bias, the ‘middle of the road’ bias occurs when managers avoid rating employees on extreme ends of the scales (i.e. negative or positive). 

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This commonly happens when managers are asked to perform an internal survey rating of their employees. The reason behind giving a ‘middle of the road review’ is to avoid showing extreme emotion or due to lack of full understanding of the survey question(s). 

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The best way to avoid this bias is to ensure that survey questions are properly worded and have clear options in the given answers. It’s also important to remind managers to be honest about their reviews, even if that honesty rates someone at an extreme end of the scales.  

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Being aware of these seven common biases is the best way to avoid falling into the trap of making them. Due to the nature of remote work, it’s much easier for these biases to occur because of lack of non-verbal communication. As a manager of a remote team, it’s important to take special care and attention to avoid committing these biases when reviewing your employees. 

Your Go-To Agenda: A Performance Review Template 

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Steal this template … copy, paste, and fill out this agenda to meet your needs at your next performance review meeting. 

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                        Template for Performance Meeting Agenda

Location: 

Date: 

Attendees: 

Time: 

I. Explain what a performance evaluation is and its purpose.

II. Review the employee’s job description.

• Emphasize their strengths (where they have met or exceed expectations).
• Identify areas of improvement. Stress that you want to help and support them in their development and discuss strategies for how they can improve (i.e. taking a course)
• Come ready with specific examples for each.

III. Ask your employee to share their own self evaluation

• Discuss areas where you and your employee agree/disagree
• TIP: remember to focus on job performance, not personality.

IV. Ask your employee for ideas on how to resolve problems

• Work together with your employee to help them set appropriate goals, expectations, and objectives for the upcoming year (see the sections on SMART goals for further expansion.)

V. Conclude

• Thank your employee for their participation in the evaluation
• Summarize what has been discussed and ask if there are any final questions.
• End on a positive note (for more tips on how to properly conclude a performance evaluation meeting see below). 

Once you’ve completed customizing this agenda to your own needs, email it to your employee the day/night before the meeting so they know what to expect. 

The Dos and Don'ts of Communication Practices During Performance Reviews

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Below is an easy to use table with examples of common phrases reworded to promote healthier and more positive communication between you and your employee during a performance review meeting. 

REMEMBER: There is no such thing as over-communication. In the remote world, communication is the life-blood of your business. Don’t be afraid to make the extra effort in your communication practices to ensure your professional interactions are as flawless as they can be.‍