Mid-Year Performance Reviews- Part 1

May the odds be ever in your favor!

It’s that time again! Many of you are now halfway through the year, and that means setting new goals for H2 and the (dreaded) mid-year performance reviews. We’ll talk about setting goals in a later post, but I wanted to address some best practices for employee performance reviews. Every performance review process I have participated in has these two core components; the self-review and the manager review. Today I will give some tips on crafting your self review.

Focus on Impact

The most important thing your self-review needs to convey is the (positive) impact your work has had on the company/organization. Ideally that impact is directly tied to one (or many) of the stated goals of the organization. Properly conveying the breadth and depth of the impact of your work can make a huge difference to your rating and promotion potential. Try to start every paragraph or section of you self-review with a statement of impact (ex: “I facilitated X working group to 3 key deliverables in direct support of Y goal”). If you can include numbers in a meaningful way (“project saved $500k/ impacted 40% of advertisers, etc) do so!

Keep it Short!

Every performance tool I’ve used has a character limit, so you will need to keep the narrative concise. Keep in mind that your self-review is most likely what your manager will refer to when crafting their manager review. (In the Foreign Service, I was explicitly instructed to give my managers a summary of my achievements over the review cycle for them to write their performance review of me). While it may feel discouraging to think that your manager doesn’t “just know” what you’ve done, consider that this practice gives you pretty direct control over the narrative of your work. Many managers are so overwhelmed by performance reviews that they may take what you’ve written word-for-word (or nearly) in writing their review. Give them the highlights, not the details! If they need more, they will ask you- I always did.

Take Credit

I know we work in collaborative settings. It is pretty unusual for anyone to achieve anything significant purely by their own efforts. However, both in Tech and in the Foreign Service, I have seen people be underrated when they do not take direct credit for their role in getting projects completed. Even for projects involving 20+ collaborators, if you “drove”, “lead” or “managed” the process, say so! I guarantee you other people working on the project are taking that credit, and if you do not, you will do yourself a disservice in the review process. Performance decisions take place in large groups of mid-senior level reviewers, most of whom will not be familiar with your project, your team, or maybe even your organization and it’s specific goals. If you don’t properly take credit for your work, you will do yourself a disservice.

Hopefully these tips help a bit. When I work with my clients on their performance reviews, we use my template for drafting both the “top hits” for their manager(s) and the longer form version. I know performance reviews are stressful for all of those involved, so good luck. I’m here to help if you need it.