The timing of performance management/review/appraisal meetings

For the next few weeks, we'll be looking at performance management isues. First, when do the review or appraisal meetings happen?

Many organisations still combine within a single annual meeting the opportunity for line managers and staff members to evaluate the previous year’s performance and set the next year's objectives, goals or targets. In a typical company year – starting on 1 January and ending 31 December – this means that such a single annual meeting usually happens late in December or early in January, and occasionally slips to mid-Quarter 1 or even later.

In some organisations this meeting lacks focus due to other business priorities and, as the review is intended to look at the whole of the last 12 months it often feels rushed, and the goal setting often feels much too late. Additionally with only one annual performance review, how many of us can remember what we did 3 months ago, far less 9 or 12 months ago?

But it needn’t be like this. CIPD best practice guidelines suggest that there should be at least quarterly one-to-one review meetings between staff and their line managers. The schedule might look like this:

January: summative* review of the previous year’s performance against objectives

April: formative* review of current performance against objectives for this year Q1

July: formative review of current performance against objectives for this year Q2

October: formative review of current performance against objectives for this year Q3 AND make a start in creating next year’s objectives

Convincing line managers and staff to hold four performance management meetings a year rather than one will be easier once they realise that the four meetings can be much shorter and simpler. They give managers and staff members the opportunity to re-focus their attention so they can alter, change or even re-set the objectives for the coming period. By getting staff members to bring along evidence of their performance, which then becomes the main topic for discussion, there can be greater buy-in to future achievement.

* Summative and formative as used here have precise meanings:

The summative meeting looks back over the entire year after it is completed and tries to learn from it. This meeting evaluates the original objectives, any changes made to objectives over the year, and the performance of the staff member in working toward those objectives. The point of this meeting is to ‘draw a line’ after the previous year and pass on data for other important HR processes, such as Learning Needs Analysis and the allocation of Rewards.

The formative meeting is rather different: it looks at current objectives and current performance and is intended to ‘steer’ current and ongoing work to maintain total focus on business objectives.