Linda Bonanno's Weblog

I guess I should come clean. Reviews are on my mind right now because I need to write the performance reviews of my team over the next week. I am procrastinating a little bit this year. Only one of my direct reports has been with me for the whole year – the rest are fairly new, less than 6 months. This first review is critical. I want to address things that I’ve seen, but I also am still gaining their trust. I’m not completely sure how anyone is going to react. I guess that I just need to do what has worked for me in the past.

One of the key things I have learned is that you have to put some work into these things to make them worthwhile.  There’s nothing that I hated more than having a manager who would skimp on my review. I didn’t care if it was generally positive. What I cared about was content. If you aren’t spending the time on these things it is immediately obvious. There is nothing that tells an employee that you couldn’t care less about them than a vague review. Be specific. Be very specific. Examples are terrific. Using your intuition can also be rewarding.

You’ll know when you did a really outstanding job – when a crusty old veteran says “That was the best review I ever had. It was obvious that you put a lot of thought into it. I even agree with what you think I need to work on… thank you.”