There is no single way to do a performance review. In fact, a great deal of the time while an organization has a performance review process in place, it is only a partial process, and up to the individual manager to develop their own approach to keeping records and communicating with team members. This takes some creativity and communications skill, but above all, it takes an intentional and systematic approach to a necessary routine task. Not something to be neglected, not something to be sloughed off or ignored.
In fact, by textbook definition, if something is to be managed, then it must be measured. If there is no measuring, then there is no managing.
Tying a performance review to pay increases the need to have an effective and efficient process in place. What does the above-mentioned, flawed review communicate to the best and brightest? It demotivates. It rewards mediocrity. It communicates to all employees that the most the organization wants from them are to show up and make some work-like motions at best. In short, all incentive to perform better than average is lost. Creativity is stifled, choked out in the preponderance of mediocrity.
So, what is a manager to do? How does one find the time? I would argue that the single most important action a manager of people has is to create an environment where people can thrive, where their best is drawn out through challenge, where they are held objectively accountable, where they feel a sense of contribution value, and where people feel they belong. Thus, time spent in communicating direction, measuring objectively, and encouraging performance is the best use of a manager’s time.
We are only beginning to understand these concepts in the context of managing a remote workforce. There are pockets of inspiration out there, corporations putting careful thought into what is expected of workers and if they need to be face-to-face to perform. Obviously, there are those that need to be face-to-customer and those positions will remain with us instead of being outsourced to AI. I for one enjoy my human interactions.
As a manager, I don’t need to know what my team members are doing every minute of the day (housework, working on the patio, taking a walk). But I for sure need to know that they will get their work packages completed in a timely fashion and that they are responsive to peers and customers during prime time. That said, I can watch for inspired work that they do, coach for creativity, and correct when deliverables are falling out of orbit. That takes a new set of measures that I am only just beginning to explore and comprehend.
-updated from a 2012 post on Points in Between.