Mid-year reviews are the perfect checkpoint. In your professional journey, it’s very valuable to receive a chance to reflect upon your progress, receive feedback, and address any challenges in order to set an effective route to success in the future.
The best way to get ready for your mid-year reviews is to keep an open mind first and embody a constructive, proactive attitude to thrive. But of course, there are other things you can do to ensure your evaluations prove productive. So let’s dive in!
What is the purpose of mid-year reviews?
The purpose is quite straightforward. Mid-year reviews exist to provide a structured opportunity for employees and managers alike to reflect on performance, assess alignment with goals, and identify areas that need improvement.
To provide more detail on that, yes mid-year reviews evaluate performance but they do that through setting and adjusting goals, providing constructive feedback throughout the process. In doing so, mid-year reviews aim to cultivate open communication.
Just as it is about highlighting what needs to develop further, mid-year reviews are also about recognizing achievements. They acknowledge and celebrate progress and motivate the workforce to strive for even higher.
Preparing to Review Employee Performance in Mid-Year Reviews
Yes, mid-year reviews like any performance evaluation require preparation. But it’s not only limited to that simply because performance management as a whole is a continuous and ever-evolving process that includes performance evaluations by nature.
While it’s important to collect data, that data is mere meaningless information if you don’t track the progress over time. Without tracking progress continuously, you cannot effectively see your team’s trajectory and make the necessary adjustments to succeed along the way.
The best way to keep on top of your data is to utilize a central performance management platform.
- In order to track the data from the entire review period effectively, it’s a must to use a centralized communication and collaboration hub like Microsoft Teams or Outlook.
- If you integrate a performance management tool into this hub, you’ll be up-to-date on all of the tasks, goals, and overall progress during the review period.
Let’s take a look into exactly how you can do that!
1. Integrate Teamflect into Your Microsoft Teams or Outlook
The first step is to head over to the add apps section inside Teams and download Teamflect, the best all-in-one performance management solution designed for Teams. Being the highest-rated app inside Microsoft Teams, and with free user rights of up to 10 people, Teamflect is the highest contender for the best app to choose!
Inside your homepage, you’ll be met with a collection of all of your existing data within the app. Teamflect also allows for seamless implementation of your organizational chart and related information of the company since it draws the data automatically from Entra ID.
2. Gather performance data
One of the most crucial parts of any evaluation is the data that you have collected. Without any information on the person in the form of performance metrics, it is impossible to conduct a review process with fairness and effectiveness.
Goal Completion Rates
With Teamflect’s all-in-one approach, you can see everything about an employee’s progress within your team. One example is a detailed view of the goals that were assigned to them and their current progress with those objectives.
Make sure to take note of which goals were achieved and which were underperformed before you enter the review period, so that you can effectively make your evaluations and set a course moving forward.
Task Completion
Another is their tasks and the current state of those tasks that were determined which can also be related to certain goals, which is highly recommended as a practice since it’s highly important to make sure your daily tasks match and align the results you wish to receive, and your overall goals as an organization.
Recognitions Received
Last but not least, keep in mind the recognitions your employee has received up until now as you evaluate their performance. Whether it be from you or other supervisors, maybe their peers, the recognition an employee gets is a very diligent insight into their performance in your organization.
3. Evaluate Performance Metrics
In addition to your goals, recognitions, and tasks thus far, the performance metrics that were determined will also be of guidance to you during this process.
Which of the metrics come up in the recognitions the employee has received? Or, “What type of metrics have not been represented throughout in either scenario? ” are the types of questions that you can ask in order to better understand where your employee stands.
Role Competencies
With each role in an organization, there is a list of competencies employees need to possess in order to fulfill that role’s responsibilities to their full extent.
You can use the Teamflect app to scan your organization chart and generate competencies, responsibilities, and job descriptions for each role.
These competencies can then be integrated into performance appraisals as a part of the evaluation process.
Before heading into mid-year reviews, review the competencies around the reviewee’s role and evaluate how their performance, attitude, and skillset measure up against said competencies.
4. Review 360-Degree Feedback Results
Teamflect also offers a 360-degree feedback option if you choose to use it to make sure you get the most thorough mid-year review experience possible. You can utilize this feature right inside the review itself, and gain an even more well-rounded set of data about your employee.
Initiate 360-degree feedback cycles in advance of performance appraisals and go over the input from the reviewee’s direct reports, peers, and managers, alongside the feedback from external parties they’ve interacted with. This data will provide you with a holistic view of the reviewees performance.
5. Map Out an Employee Development Plan
As you’re conducting your reviews, there is also the ability to attach goals during the review in accordance with the development plan you’ll likely be setting according to the results of your evaluations.
As you click on create a new goal, you’ll be met with a highly customizable pop-up that you can adjust in accordance with,
- The type of goal, whether it is individual, department, company, or team goal.
- Decide on a description that best reflects the core of your objective.
- Set up how you wish to measure the progress and set a target if necessary.
- Create a link between the goal you’re creating and other goals by selecting related parent goals.
- Customize a timeline of your choice for your objective.
