Summersault Blog

If you read my previous post about 10 Reasons to Work at Summersault, you may have noted Reason #5: In-depth performance reviews provide you with concrete professional goals and feedback on your successes. As we wrap up our Fall review cycle for staff here, I thought I’d say a little more about just what that process involves.

When Summersault was just staffed by its two co-owners, we didn’t see a whole lot of need for formal reviews.  After all, we were checking in with each other on a daily basis about running the company and how each of us contributed to that, so it would have been a little redundant spend much additional time reiterating those conversations.  (That said, some people benefit from having written evaluations no matter how much they hear the information being communicated on a daily basis, so it could be argued that we would have benefitted too.)

When we hired our first employee, we knew that one part of building a team was providing consistent and thorough feedback about performance.  We conducted an initial formal check-in that mostly asked about things like “how’s your workspace?” and “do you need any more training?”  but it was still a good opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and look at the big picture.  Eventually we got around to instituting a more thorough review process, and it’s evolved significantly over the years.

From our Employee Orientation Guide:

The review session is the most focused and intentional opportunity during the course of one’s time at Summersault to reflect on your role in the company and how well you are contributing toward fulfilling our mission. The scope of what’s being reviewed is quite broad, and includes day-to-day activities, professional development, specific job skills and technical knowledge, relationships with co-workers, clients and the wider industry, and the goals and hopes that you have for your time here.

The process is intended to take form as a conversation that builds a shared vision for the future, not a handing down of judgment. The conversation happens internally as self-reflection for the staff member, between the staff member and the reviewer, between the reviewer and the staff member’s peers, and can involve other parties as needed. Our hope is that through these conversations, we can develop the best and most comprehensive snapshot of how the staff member is performing, and see what can happen to facilitate further development and improvement. To that end, the review process is not finalized until the staff member and reviewer agree that the written document is the best reflection of that conversation.

Here’s how it works today:

• A month or two before the review cycle is upon us, each person is reminded about how the process works, and asked to start work on a written self-review.  The self-review asks the same questions that the main review form uses, so it allows for easy comparison between how the reviewer and person being reviewed see things.
• Each person is also asked to complete one or more written peer reviews, where they can provide feedback about their co-workers and suggestions for improvement.  The peer reviews are not as comprehensive as our primary review questions, and some questions are even rating scales instead of free-form.  The peer reviews are turned into the reviewer(s), and are anonymous by default, with the option for the peer reviewer to indicate that the comments can be shared.
• For the review session itself, the reviewer and person being reviewed read through the self-review and primary written evaluation, and discuss them in depth.  Discrepancies are explored, concerns addressed, and possibilities for improvement and professional development are suggested.  If performance related compensation increases are in order, they’re also discussed.
• Each review form helps the staff member set tangible, achievable goals for the time in between review cycles.  The goals are crafted with full collaboration from the staff member, not just handed down.  These objectives then serve as the starting point for the next year’s review - how well were they achieved, what work is left to be done, etc.?

Some people who hear me describe this process note how exhaustive it seems, and how time consuming it must be.  It is: between the several hours each that can go into writing a self-review and peer reviews, the reviewer putting together the primary evaluation, and then the review meetings themselves, it’s definitely a significant time and energy investment as a company.  There are times when it feels like too much, but so far we haven’t found a better way to make sure that we’re giving each other every opportunity to better ourselves in tangible, measurable ways, while adding more value for our clients.

Of course, beyond this formal review process, we are always getting and giving feedback to each other about our work throughout the year.  Sometimes that comes from clients (we ask each client to fill out a survey after each major project), sometimes from other staff, and sometimes just from the people out in the community and wider world who use the sites we build.  We make sure it’s understood that the yearly review cycle isn’t the singular place to share concerns and open up possibilities for growth - it’s just the beginning.

And yes, even as co-owners of the company, Mark and I still go through this process ourselves, and are held accountable to its results.   I really appreciate the opportunity to have intentional feedback from my co-workers about how I’m doing, and how I could do better.

If you have stories of how your organization handles staff evaluations and reviews, or ideas for how this kind of process can be thorough AND time efficient, we’d love to hear them.

Tags: communication, employment, evaluations, feedback, professional development, reviews, Small Business, staff

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.