Secrets of the Annual Performance Review

The “annual performance review” process is broken in many ways, and a lot of companies have moved away from it already, but if you are still exposed to one here are 2 key things they likely won’t tell you :

• Your performance rating, any compensation changes, and promotion decisions have already been decided before you even write your self-assessment
• The only person that really matters in decisions about your performance, pay and promotions, is your direct manager

I’ve seen people write multiple pages of text for their self assessment, describing the details of their performance and achievements at length. This is a waste of time.

What all this means is that you should be on the same page with your manager about promotion prospects and performance at all times. If you and your manager are getting this communication right, then the performance review should be no surprise to you.

How to make the best of it

Even in the broken annual performance review model, it doesn’t hurt to take some time to :

• truly reflect on your performance — the highlights and the lowlights (and not just ‘selling’ the lowlights as positives ;-)
• think about where you want to develop and grow
• decide what career path you want to be on
• get on same page with your manager about how to advance — be explicit about your goals and agree a plan with your manager
• give/receive bi-directional feedback with your manager

Ideally you are doing these things frequently and not just once a year, but sometimes time passes quickly and the performance review period is a good point to step back and take stock.

Just don’t expect last-minute introspection and a lengthy self-assessment to change the outcome of an annual review.