Over the past few weeks, I have been immersed in mid-year performance reviews. As an HR leader, I have not only been conducting these reviews, but I have also been working with my team on improving the review process for both supervisors and supervisees. My team has also been supporting managers to deliver what can often be difficult feedback.
What strikes me every time is that no matter how much I and other HR leaders know about how performance management should work, we are not immune from getting it wrong. So, I have been spending some time giving mid-year reviews some serious thought and that, dear readers, is going to be the subject of this week’s Corner Office.
Too often, organizations treat the mid-year performance review as a smaller version of the annual appraisal: open the performance management system, review the objectives, enter some comments, have the obligatory conversation and move on. But that misses the point.
A mid-year review should be one of the most valuable management conversations of the year because, unlike the year-end appraisal, there is still time to do something about what you discover. For example, there is time to change a goal that no longer makes sense, to address underperformance before it becomes a year-end surprise, to recognize someone who has quietly been carrying far more than expected and to reset priorities, provide resources, clarify expectations and repair a relationship that may be drifting.
Yet we often don’t take advantage of this unique opportunity and here are some of the reasons why.
1. We arrive at the conversation unprepared
This may sound like a no-brainer but one of the most common errors that managers make in giving feedback no matter the time of the year, is to come to the conversation, unprepared. And I get it. We are all busy so although we may send the invitation and think that that forethought is enough. We’re wrong. We convince ourselves that we can have a useful conversation based on what we remember. But I am to tell you that we cannot. You need to be armed with evidence. Not just of the employees’ work and impact but you need to be keyed to how objectives are changing in the organization.
Remember that the employee is not the only one in the hotseat. You are as well. The employee is looking to you for an indication of where and how the organization may be changing. The employee may have valuable information about opportunities for improvement in the department. In short, performance feedback is a two-way street.
One final thought on this point about preparation. Preparation also means looking beyond the most recent few weeks. Recency bias is one of the easiest traps to fall into. An excellent recent performance can obscure six months of inconsistency, just as one recent mistake can overshadow months of strong contribution.
2. Delivery falls short of the mark
Another common problem is how feedback is delivered.
Statements such as "You need to be more strategic," "You need to communicate better," or "You need to demonstrate more leadership" sound meaningful but are often remarkably unhelpful. As a manager you have to be specific. Come prepared to answer the question “What would different behavior have looked like?”
Let me give you an example. Instead of saying, "You need to communicate better," a manager might say: "When project timelines changed last month, several stakeholders learned about the change after decisions had already been made. Going forward, I would like you to identify affected stakeholders earlier and communicate significant changes before implementation." See what I did there? Now the employee knows what happened, why it mattered and what needs to change.
One final point about delivery; remember to probe before delivering a verdict. You may think that, for example, communication was the issue, but you may find that the obstacle or issue was within your wheelhouse as management to support that employee to deliver. A simple question like "What got in the way?" can help you to unravel where you can do better for your supervisees.
3. Goals may already be obsolete
I have said it time and time again. Change is the only constant and organizations change constantly. Employees may inherit responsibilities that did not exist when their objectives were established and technology may change how work gets done. And yet we sometimes arrive at mid-year and assess employees against goals written six months earlier as though nothing has happened.
We as managers have to astute enough to know that if a goal is no longer relevant, we need to change it or remove it altogether. Additionally, if an employee has spent the last four months delivering something impactful which wasn’t part of the original workplan, this is the time to formally add it. Why? Because performance management should reflect the work we actually need people to perform. And the mid-year review is precisely the moment to reconcile planned performance with organizational reality.
4. We send mixed messages because honesty feels uncomfortable
This is perhaps the most difficult issue and the most frustrating for employees. Most managers do not like those tough conversations. Remember the “feedback sandwich”? It was popularized in the 1980s as an effective approach to giving feedback and believe me, in some situations it can be 100% useful but, in my opinion, this approach has significant disadvantages. Sometimes managers surround difficult feedback with so much reassurance that the employee leaves believing everything is fine. Then, several months later, the same employee receives a disappointing year-end rating and is genuinely shocked.
But there is a difference between being kind and being unclear. If performance is below expectations, employees deserve to know in the mid-year review because this is the opportunity to change that something that needs to change significantly before year-end.
Managers often worry that their feedback will be too harsh and that trust will be broken, but in my experience, prolonged ambiguity damages trust much more. Just keep in mind that we can be clear without being cruel and your supervisees are more resilient than you think. The key is balance so go ahead and acknowledge strengths while addressing weaknesses clearly and unequivocally.
5. We forget that the review should look forward
Performance reviews are by nature an exercise in looking backwards. We as managers however should also train ourselves to look forward. Discussions around what your direct report needs to stop doing, where they need support, what both you and they need to do differently moving forward. That’s the essence of the conversation. A useful mid-year conversation should end with both parties having greater clarity about the second half of the year.
There should be few surprises about priorities and expectations should be explicit. The employee should know exactly what improvement looks like and most importantly, the manager should leave with commitments too.
So, I’ve spoken from the perspective of the manager, but how does HR come in? What can HR do?
It would be easy for HR to send a reminder that mid-year reviews are due, publish the completion rate and chase managers who have not clicked "submit" but that’s about the administration of performance.
If HR wants performance management to improve organizational performance, our role has to go further. Here are four areas where I think HR can make a meaningful difference.
1. Train managers on the human part of the conversation. HR should provide practical guidance on preparing evidence, delivering difficult feedback, asking good questions, addressing defensiveness and distinguishing a performance problem from a resource, capability or role-clarity problem.
A 30-minute manager clinic immediately before the review cycle may be more valuable than a 30-page performance management manual.
2. Actively encourage managers and employees to challenge stale objectives. This is particularly important in organizations experiencing restructuring, funding changes, rapid growth or shifting strategic priorities.
3. Help managers improve the quality of feedback by providing simple frameworks, examples and coaching to move away from vague observations and toward specific, evidence-based feedback. Let’s face it. If a manager tells HR that an employee has "serious performance concerns" but the written review says, "doing well overall," there is a problem.
4. Hold managers accountable for managing performance throughout the year. The mid-year review is a good start but providing feedback should be ongoing. HR needs to actively feed the expectation that managers will provide ongoing feedback, address problems when they emerge, recognize contribution, revisit priorities and document important conversations. HR needs to keep its ears to the ground with staff. The mid-year review should not compensate for six months of silence. It is not a tick-the-box exercise.
In summary, let’s keep things straight. The annual appraisal tells us how the year ended. On the other hand, the mid-year review gives us an opportunity to change how it ends. These are two different things. That said, the real question in the mid-year review is "What do we need to change now so that six months from today, we can both say this was a successful year?"
That is the conversation worth having.