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I am currently in the process of our company's Annual Review cycle. My reviews have been written and I am ready to schedule times and conduct meetings. I am taking the MT suggestion of delivering a copy of the review to the directs prior to the meeting (this has not been done before as my time as a manager, nor has any manager of mine done it this way). I am really excited to have review meetings in which my directs can read through and carefully consider my review and bring me their thoughts, questions, and future goals instead of the uncomfortable "read it while the boss watches" situation!!!

Most of my associates are non-salary. This means that I can not give them a take home assignment to complete without paying them. Given that I work in retail where labor costs and hours are watched to the point of diminishing returns, and also that state law requires a two hour shift, I can't just give hourly associates take home work. Especially associates already scheduled to work 40 hours as that would cause the dreaded overtime.

Other options would include giving them the review the morning of the meeting or before they leave for work the day prior to the meeting. I am not sure I like either of those options but perhaps one hour before they leave the day before the meeting would be best? No work is going to be done either way once that associate has their review in hand.

Any thoughts on the best approach?

tlhausmann's picture
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I like your idea of presenting the review an hour or two before they leave for the day. Whether they have time to review the document before they leave is their choice. Further, you are not requiring a review on their time...it is their choice and it seems, to me, you are on safe ground.

acao162's picture

I work with only non-salaried people.  I hand out reviews in the morning, before lunch & expect to talk to them about it the following morning.  Handing out the review takes 2 minutes - here's your annual review.   Please read it & we'll talk about it tomorrow at ___ time.  But my people already know what is in the review because we talk openly all year about goals & challenges.

Generally, the review is a put-in-writing summary of what we've been talking about.  Example:  Joe can answer level 1 support answers & is training in level 2.   Or:  At his last review, Joe was struggling with level 1 support calls and has now exceeded expectations on these calls.  He is currently training in level 2 and his goal is to be trained by March 31.

There are NO surprises in a review, unless they are a positive "you blew us away with results on project X" comment.  That shouldn't be a surprise either but sometimes directs haven't fully understood their impact until review time. 

I don't think you can expect hourly workers to spend their own time receiving face-time with you.  Reading their review, yes.  For those High C's in my office, this is the most effective way yo deliver their review.  They have time to digest it all, think about their questions & be ready to talk tomorrow.  Bonus, by scheduling face-time, they know I respect their time & work.