This week, we continue with our discussion on effective performance reviews. Last week, we discussed collecting data; today we discuss evaluating the data and writing the review. In the weeks following, we’ll continue with a discussion on actually DELIVERING the review.

Also, thanks to Kevin Williams at the Middle Management Lobotomy Podcast for his kind remarks about Manager Tools on his show. Another management podcast we listen to regularly that’s worth checking out!

It’s the end of the year. Most managers we know are thinking about the holidays… and annual reviews. After years of managing, training and consulting, we’ve concluded this is one of the most poorly managed and implemented processes we’re aware of. it’s not hard to do, but for plenty of (bad) reasons, managers just don’t handle this responsibility well. For those few who do, it’s an enormous competitive advantage.

We’re dedicating at least the next THREE podcasts to helping you deliver an effective performance review. We’ve taken the approach that you haven’t had a whole year of one on ones, with the related notes, and haven’t done quarterly reviews to prepare for this one. In this first podcast, we start walking through HOW TO WRITE the review. There are 3 steps in this first part of the process: COLLECTING DATA, EVALUATING DATA, and finally WRITING THE REVIEW. All three of those steps take two podcasts. Starting with the third ‘cast in this series, we talk about how to actually DELIVER the evaluation.

We reference a sample letter for gathering performance data from your employees … you can find it here.

Today, we cover the second of two shows on “Coaching Revisited”. If you haven’t listened to last week’s show, we encourage you to do so. This one picks right up where we left off last week.