Performance Reviews - Expectation, Impact and Behaviour
Practical strategies for setting expectations, evaluating impact and recognizing behaviors, ensuring a meaningful review process that benefits both managers and their teams.
January 24, 2025
Evaluating employees can be one of the trickiest aspects of being a manager. How do you write fair and constructive feedback? How do you assess someone’s contributions in a way that doesn't feel arbitrary? How do you avoid recency bias? How do you ensure that your evaluation doesn’t overlook the nuances that make each employee unique? These challenges can lead to frustration for both managers and employees, often resulting in reviews that miss the mark.
The performance review process is a chance for us to reinforce the behaviors we want to see within our teams.
Setting Expectations
First things first, successful performance reviews start at the beginning of the review period. It’s essential for both managers and employees to clarify what success looks like well in advance. Setting expectations does not mean nailing down all the nitty-gritty details for specific projects or exact metrics, because those things can be hard to pin down right away.
Instead, start with the behaviours and the scope of the impact you want to see. If your employee is a junior individual contributor, you might be looking for behaviours like proactivity, accountability and a strong commitment to self-development. For more senior roles, your expectation of their scope may include the ability to independently manage multiple projects at once. For employees who are in management positions, expectations will include the responsibility they have in caring for their team.
Being explicit about what you value is key. One useful approach is to reflect on past contributions and scope. Discuss what you appreciated the most and what seemed less impactful. This kind of conversation can be very illuminating and it sets a solid foundation for a successful review.
Focus on Impact
Here’s where things often get tricky: many performance reviews can come off as arbitrary, heavily influenced by recent events or a rigid adherence to goals and OKRs. Unfortunately, it’s not all that unusual to see folks still working against outdated objectives, simply because "that’s how we’re reviewed.”
Instead, take the time to assess the actual impact an employee has made throughout the review period, considering both significant contributions and the little wins. Impact isn’t only about hitting big, obvious milestones; it’s also about consistent effort, reliability and how the employee navigated challenges along the way. To make this easier, keep a running log of their contributions as they happen - trust me, you’ll be glad you did when it’s time to write the reviews.
When evaluating impact, consider a mix of tangible outcomes and less visible but equally important factors. Did they achieve key goals or objectives? How did they handle their “business as usual” responsibilities (those ongoing tasks that keep things running smoothly)? Beyond that, think about the difficulty of the goals they pursued: were they complex or high-risk initiatives? Did they require cross-team collaboration or new skills to succeed?
It is also vital to evaluate that impact in relation to the expectations appropriate for the individual's role and level. What earned a glowing review as a senior individual contributor might not hold up as well for someone at the principal level.
Note: Clarity Forge includes features designed to facilitate tracking impact, as well as setting and communicating expectations.
Focus on Behaviour
Equally important is how the employee’s behaviour influenced the team’s culture and dynamics. Did they foster collaboration, share knowledge or help others succeed? Did they take ownership and accountability when things went wrong? Did they seek feedback to improve? These less measurable contributions often shape a team’s long-term success and are essential to recognize.
The performance review process reinforces the behaviours we will see on our teams.
- If you want employees to take risks and go for big wins, you cannot penalise them every time they miss the mark. Doing so leads employees to aim low with their targets to avoid penalties for missing big goals.
- While hard work doesn’t always pay off, dedication and perseverance are behaviours that deserve recognition.
- Toxic managers can get great results at the expense of their teams, so it is critical to the health and well being of the organisation to understand how results were achieved and factor that into how employees are rewarded.
Conclusion
Organisational capability is one of the best strategic, long term investments managers can make for a company. As such, performance reviews shouldn’t just be a chore to check off your to-do list, they should serve as opportunities for growth and connection within your team.
Most employees appreciate feedback. By establishing clear expectations, thoughtfully evaluating impact and recognising the right behaviours, performance reviews can be something to look forward to. Remember, your aim is to foster an environment where employees feel seen, appreciated and motivated to push their boundaries.
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