6 Scary Numbers For Your Organization’s C-Suite (And What To Do About Them): Part 3

In part three of my series discussing Gallup’s workplace research, I want to focus on employee retention. Once you have compelled the right people, hired and on-boarded, now it’s time to keep them. A critical part of any employee’s development is a performance review. These reviews offer the employee a fair assessment of their performance including what they are doing well and what they can improve on. However, according to Gallup, only 14% of employees agree that the performance reviews they receive inspire them to improve.

This is a jarring statistic. The very purpose of performance reviews should be to inspire the employee to not only improve, but thrive and excel at their job. Yet only a little more than 1 out of every 10 employees sees value in their annual performance review. If your employees aren’t inspired to improve then what are they inspired to do? Stay the same, give up, slack off, just clock in and clock out. Engaged employees are highly valuable and will really make or break the success of your business.

To take it one step further, Gallup’s research also states that 67% of employees say they are sometimes, very often or always burned out at work. When performance reviews stop inspiring your employees to
improve and stay on track with your vision, things can quickly start to unravel. So how do you deliver a fair performance review that inspires them to improve so they don’t start to burn out?

One of most important parts to making performance reviews effective is making them comfortable. And that means that communication has to be frequent between an employee and manager. There should be regular
informal feedback given during all parts of the year rather than just at an annual performance review. When communication is frequent, open and honest and the relationship has a foundation, this once-a-year review
won’t be as awkward but rather there will be a dialogue that leads to improvement.

Performance reviews should also be geared toward what your employee is doing well and how they are a valuable asset to your business. Of course there should also be room for development opportunities. But there is a difference between offering constructive feedback and running down a list of all the things someone is doing wrong. Focusing on the employee’s successes will keep the review positive while praising their work and effort.

Don’t let your employees become burned out. Check in with them on a regular basis and make sure you are listening. Make their performance review productive and inspiring by equipping them with what they need to
succeed. Again, once you have attracted and acquired the right people for your business, you should be focused on retention. You can’t put a price on engaged and inspired employees.

If you need help creating a new or better performance review process for your organization, then click here to schedule a free executive consultation. Or, if you’re just curios about how I help executives and their businesses, shoot me a note or give me a quick call. [email protected] or 727-470-0877.

See the full list of statistics on the infographic below: