6 Tips to Improve Collaboration in Performance Appraisals

It’s no secret that employee performance reviews have developed a bad reputation over the years. That’s because too many companies use outdated strategies, like giving one annual review focused on past performance. These methods aren’t motivating your employees or improving their performance, and they certainly aren’t helping your managers build collaborative relationships with their direct reports.

Even if you’ve updated your performance management process, you can still look for ways to make it more collaborative. Improving collaboration is great for business: it can boost productivity by 39% and lead to 20% higher job satisfaction. Good teamwork can even boost business revenue. 

The more collaborative, the better when it comes to the performance appraisal process. Keep reading for six performance review tips for better collaboration.

Performance Review Collaboration Tip #1: Meet Every Week #

If there’s just one collaboration tip you remember, make it this one. Researchers have uncovered significant evidence for the benefits of weekly manager-employee one-on-one meetings:

• Employees are three times more likely to be engaged if they have weekly one-on-ones. 
• 43% of highly engaged employees meet with their manager once a week. 
• Continuous feedback systems lead to employees who are 65% more motivated and 66% more productive. 

BONUS TIP: Encourage employees to set up regular one-on-ones with colleagues they often work with. These informal discussions help build communication skills, interpersonal skills, and strong relationships, even friendships, that keep employees engaged and motivated. 

Performance Review Collab Tip #2: Set Goals Together#

One of the most common ways to measure performance is by setting goals. Typically, employees have annual or quarterly individual and team goals to meet that align with business goals (contributing directly to a company objective). While those goals are essential, try to avoid just assigning goals and moving on — that doesn’t leave much room to collaborate. 

Instead, discuss the goals with your employees. Do they feel they can achieve their goals, meet deadlines, and deliver high-quality work? Discussion gives employees a chance to voice any concerns, ask questions, and work with managers to come up with creative solutions. 

You should also talk to employees about their professional goals, like new skills they’d like to develop, help them define those goals, and then share ideas for reaching them. When you help your employees uncover and grow their strengths, you cultivate a work environment where they feel supported and motivated to do their best. 

BONUS TIP: Annual performance reviews suffer from “recency bias,” meaning the focus tends to be on recent projects or accomplishments. That’s because it’s difficult to remember the events of an entire year. 

To combat recency bias, evaluate goals and performance closely at least once per quarter. Even better, touch on goals monthly — if you’re following our first tip and meeting weekly, you’ll have plenty of chances to do so.

Performance Review Collab Tip #3: Make It a Conversation#

Traditional employee performance appraisals were often just managers talking to employees about areas for improvement or saying the equivalent of “Keep up the good work.” Too much negative feedback, constructive feedback, and even vague positive feedback can leave employees feeling discouraged and confused. 

Only expecting employees to receive feedback is another issue. Don’t just tell employees how you think they’re doing or read what you wrote in their review. Make room for collaboration by structuring performance reviews as conversations. 

Act as an active listener and kick off the discussion by posing questions like these:

• How do you feel about your performance?
• Is there anything I can do better as a supervisor to support you?
• What do you feel are your strongest skills? Your weakest?
• Are there any professional development opportunities you’re interested in exploring? 

Turning the tables and allowing employees to self-reflect helps managers gain important insight into how best to support their team members. Understanding their perspective can even help you offer them better constructive criticism.

It also gives the reviewer the chance to show humility, which increases feelings of psychological safety. Feeling psychologically safe makes people more comfortable sharing concerns and expressing opinions candidly, which, in turn, improves team performance. 

BONUS TIP: When managers deliver feedback focused on improvement, it needs to be seen as actionable and supported by facts. Ensure you — and any reviewer at your organization — focus on the behavior, not the person, when giving feedback. 

An ineffective way to address employee behavior is to say, “You are inconsiderate of others’ time.” It’s vague and attacks the employee personally rather than pointing to a specific behavior that's hurting their performance. 

A more effective way for managers to address an employee’s chronic tardiness might be by saying, “You’ve arrived late to our weekly meetings four times this month. How can we ensure you’re arriving on time going forward?” That way, you can start a conversation about how to improve rather than negatively characterizing and blaming the employee.

Performance Review Collab Tip #4: Start With a Self-Assessment#

Struggling with how to improve performance appraisal collaboration? Employee self-assessments are an excellent way to introduce a more effective collaboration in the performance review process. As a bonus, they help managers gain a more complete view of employee performance. 

Exploring your employees’ experience before discussing your managerial and peer review notes tells you a lot about how employees see themselves — and it can give managers helpful insights. Do they recognize their strengths and weaknesses? Do they want to develop a skill you didn’t know they were interested in? Self-evaluations are key to getting to know your people better. 

Did you know self-assessments can make it easier to have difficult performance conversations? Managers often need to discuss areas for improvement or weaknesses, which can be difficult to do constructively. But if you’re having regular one-on-ones, employees are likely already aware of where they need to improve, so they’re likely to bring it up in their self-assessments. Self-assessments empower employees to take charge of their performance and give managers a natural segue into providing actionable feedback and coaching.

Read more on the ClearCompany blog on how to incorporate self-evaluations into your performance review process.

BONUS TIP: Use these performance review phrases to offer feedback based on employee self-evaluations:

• “You mentioned one of your weaknesses is [weakness, e.g., too detail-oriented] and it’s causing [effect, e.g., missed deadlines]. Do you think [solution, e.g., discussing roadblocks and upcoming deadlines for projects at weekly one-on-ones] could help prevent those outcomes?”
• “In your self-assessment, you noted one of your areas for improvement was [area for improvement, e.g., following up on action items after meetings]. Do you think [solution, e.g., following up on action items every Monday at 11 a.m.] could help you improve in this area?”
• “Your self-evaluation says you’d like to move into a management role in the next one to two years. To do that, let’s discuss some skills you can develop and strengths you can refine to meet that goal.”

Performance Review Collab Tip #5: Recognize Employees’ Work#

Believe it or not, recognizing and rewarding employees helps improve collaboration. 69% of employees would work harder if they felt recognized by management, and 37% said recognition would motivate them to do better work more often. 

It’s a no-brainer when you think about it. Would you be more inclined to stay at your job and be a team player with a positive attitude when your hard work goes unnoticed or when it’s celebrated? Regular recognition and encouragement, both manager-employee and peer-to-peer, lead to better teamwork. 

Performance Review Collab Tip #6: Use Performance Management Software#

Performance appraisal processes can be extremely unwieldy, which is why they’re often infrequent or ineffective. But they’re also necessary for nurturing successful employees and effective teams working toward common goals. Performance evaluations don’t have to be such a burden when you use a software solution. 

You can create a more organized, cohesive, and collaborative performance management strategy with the help of robust software tools. Make sure the software has these essential features before making a purchase:

• A variety of performance review types, including self-assessments and peer reviews
• One-on-one tools that facilitate conversation, like a shared digital workspace, agenda, and meeting reminders
• Automatic review cycles to ensure evaluations occur regularly and are completed in a timely manner
• Performance analytics tools to drive insights and data-informed decision-making
• Integrates with your learning management system (LMS) to automatically recommend personalized training based on performance gaps

The Best Software for Performance Review Collaboration#

Start giving performance reviews that engage employees and drive development with ClearCo. Our unified talent platform streamlines performance management administration while revealing the "why" behind scores through connected learning and talent data.

ClearCo Performance Management has what you need to kick off your most collaborative review cycle yet:

• Expert-built performance review templates mean you can launch your next review cycle ASAP.
• 360-degree reviews and employee self-assessments give you a new perspective on performance.
• Shout-Outs and Celebrations encourage everyone to share thanks and well-wishes often and publicly. 
• Cross-lifecycle analytics connect performance trends to learning completion and LMS data, spotlighting high performers and development needs.

Schedule a demo with ClearCo to experience our connected, employee-first performance features that integrate with your LMS and talent systems for smarter collaboration.