What’s on Your Mind? Strategic Performance Management? Performance Reviews?
We developed the BLOOM® performance management system to take bigger picture questions into account, and you should be asking those questions if you’re not already. Specifically:
How often will the organization complete formal reviews?
Will reviews be completed at the time of each employee’s anniversary date or will there be a unified annual process where reviews are completed at one time throughout the organization?
Which rating scale will we use?
What do we want the review to measure?
How many people will give input to each employee’s review?
Will managers be expected to work with employees and set individual development goals and training at the time of the review?
A sound performance management system like BLOOM® will help you manage your performance review process. Here’s how:
1. How often will the organization complete formal reviews?
BLOOM® accommodates 90, 180, and 365 day review cycles, which you enter when you first implement the system. BLOOM® then automatically schedules new reviews and due dates so you don’t have to monitor the calendar or notify managers. When you enter a new employee, BLOOM® sets up a 90 day Introductory Review that the HR administrator can disable if needed. When the manager completes the Introductory Review and HR approves it, BLOOM® schedules the next review based on your review cycle. Some organizations conduct informal check‐ins between formal reviews, and we often provide our clients with resources to guide these informal check-ins so they align with the bigger picture, too.
2. Will reviews be completed at the time of each employee’s anniversary date or will there be a unified annual process where reviews are completed at one time throughout the organization?
How you structure review schedules is up to you. BLOOM® can accommodate either option. Having said that, we believe that a unified annual review cycle helps streamline the review process and save paperwork time. It also forces a sense of urgency for completion throughout the organization.
3. What rating scale will we use?
BLOOM® offers a 3, 4, and 5 point rating scale. If you read our post about rating scales you know that we recommend a 5-point scale because we believe it gives an opportunity to communicate all conditions of employee development.
4. What do we want the review form to measure?
With BLOOM® you can customize your performance review form based on the following criteria:
Work Relationships
Creativity & Initiative
Communication Skills
Role Knowledge (view training record)
Organization Standards
Individual Goals (imported from the employee record)
Competency Review (imported from the role description)
Pay Data (this can be turned on or off by role, giving managers the ability to view their employees’ pay data)
One approach is to choose criteria based on the company values and the current priorities required to achieve the strategic initiative. Another approach is to solely base the performance review on the role requirements and individual contributions of each employee.
5. How many people will give input to an employee’s review?
It’s important for employees get perspective and input from more than one person. BLOOM® can currently capture a variety of information in each employee’s review form:
Primary and secondary supervisor can enter feedback.
Executives can view and edit reviews for anyone who reports to the managers directly reporting to them.
Employees can complete self-reviews without seeing managers’ comments until the review interview.
6. Will the managers be expected to set individual employee development goals and training at the time of the review?
Your company procedure for setting employee goals will determine the answer to this question. However, we recommend making it a part of the review process because goals are the most effective way for managers to communicate individual performance enhancements. At the very least these should be reviewed. Additionally, it is good to revisit the existing goal notes and review progress and resources needed to complete open goals. Use BLOOM® to enter new goals that require attention before the next review period.
Let’s talk about strategic performance management
Contact us to learn more about strategic performance management and the BLOOM® system, or comment below with more questions you've found helpful.