Employee Reviews: A Tool for Growth, Not a Burden for Managers and Owners

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I don't know if you have experience with this, Chrissy. This is. This is a topic that's near and dear to me every year, like second or third week of January. I love going into my boss's office and hearing how I didn't live up to their expectations that they told me nothing about throughout the entire year.

Huh.

It's a great feeling, isn't it?

You were told you're not a mind reader.

Yeah, yeah, I just. And I always left with that 2% raise feeling like really happy and just wanted to go out and work. Work as hard as I could.

Yeah.

Finding another job.

Yeah. Because they're doing it wrong.

Correct. We're going to talk about how reviews can be a great tool and they don't have to be painful for you or your employees. Yeah. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need business fix.

Huh? You want to share your review horror story? Do you want a banter? What do you want?

No, I, I have a. I have a ton of great review horror stories because, like, in most cases, I still remember one. I was, I was consist. There was 100 and some odd sales one at this place. I was consistently in the top five and got nicked for all sorts of things in my annual review that didn't come up any other time. And I'm like, what the hell? Why didn't you. Yeah. And so the problem is it's twofold. First off, as an employee, I don't really want to go into the office. I mean, everyone's like, hey, how much am I not going to get this year?

Yeah. Or there's the paperwork burden, like, oh, I got to fill out all this stuff so then you can tell me how I performed or not performed. The man.

Yeah, the man. And managers always hate him because there's like, now you have to think back over the entire year and be like.

Hey, here's the box. I must check.

Yep. And it's one of Nine boxes.

Uhhuh.

And there's like, agree, strongly agree. Super strongly agree. Really? Extra super strongly agree. They're awesome.

Yes.

And I always like when there's like four sides below it too. There's like met expectations. Below expectations. Far below expectations. Very far below expectation. Or like job is in jeopardy. No, no, no. Below expectations is. Job is in jeopardy.

Yeah. There's really only 3/ exceeds meets or did not achieve.

Correct, correct. And we're, we're going to get into that. I know. Like I said, I've been through many reviews at many different and most of them did it completely wrong. And I, I walked out of the room hating my employer.

Most people do it wrong.

Even if I got a good raise, I'm like, this, this wasn't good.

Yeah.

And the problem is, as owners, as managers, we look at it and say, I gotta fill out this 100 page document.

Yeah.

And it feels like you're doing your taxes manually.

Yes.

But for each employee, all that's missing is the painful. The visor with the, the green the old accountants used to wear in the movies. The annual review, as far as I'm concerned, should be dead. Kill the annual. Annual review.

Okay.

It just, I mean, should we have a moment of silence? No, we're not even going to do that. So we're going to talk about why it's. Why the annual review is a burden. It's usually seen as just HR paperwork.

That is, I, I don't disagree.

No, it's going to end up in the filing cabinet, never to be seen or heard from again. Until that moment, that perilous moment when they say, oh, Performance Improvement plan C. Here's the, here's the one piece of paper I have for evidence. Gosh. Talk to your people. Yeah, I'm rambling. You've obviously, you've talked with plenty of businesses about this. You know, most businesses do this the wrong way. I know most businesses, Businesses do this the wrong way.

I've done it the wrong way.

Yeah. So thankfully I had it done to me wrongly enough times that when I've started to do it, I started to get this a little more right. Always a work in project, work in progress. Just dump it on the floor here.

So I would say most reviews fail because they're treated like a box. To check they're treated like paperwork instead of leadership.

Oh yeah.

It's really easy.

Yes. Say that one more time.

So reviews fail because they're treated like paperwork instead of leadership. It's not hard. No, no. And so when reviews become something HR does. Instead of something leaders use, everyone loses. It can't just be something HR does.

But it's what we've always done.

Yeah. And then we've done it wrong. So it's time to fix it. So. Research from Gallup has found that only 14% of employees strongly agree that their performance reviews inspire them to improve to higher performance.

And 13% of those were lying.

That's exactly right. There's 1% watching twisted person out of 100 that says, this is great, but it's not because they don't want feedback. It's really because the process is broken.

Yes.

So here's what I want to talk about for you and kind of talking about as we go through, like, reviews as a tool, there are four A's to how we can do that.

I should have known.

You should know.

I have to find the letter people so you can pull the letter person.

Out for whatever alliteration is good. And it's really. It's important to learn these things. So the first is alignment. The second is anticipation, and the third is advancement.

Okay. I like these.

Yes. Alignment, anticipation, and advancement. So let's go to alignment. So reviews proactively connect personal purpose to company vision. I know that sometimes in the social media piece when we talk about purpose and vision, people are like, you're talking about your business like a cult. No, I'm not. Come for me in the comments. Again, person on Instagram. Sorry. The first big purpose of a review isn't judgment. It's alignment. It is so alignment, Personal purpose to company vision. So if an employee walks out of the review wondering why their work matters. I don't know why I'm here. Then you miss the point. So people don't work just for work. They work for impact. And alignment connects an employee's personal goals with the organization strategy.

Yep.

So this is why we do the work alignment. Why? I mean, you want statistics or you want. You want something to learn from? Always. Of course. All right. Harvard Business Review found that when employees understand how their work contributes to organizational goals, their engagement and productivity significantly improve. You want to improve engagement and productivity. You want people to do more of the things so that you can grow your business, help them understand how they contribute. If I understand why it's working, I'm gonna work harder because I understand what I'm doing and why. It's the why of what I'm doing.

100%. It's knowing that you may be part of a bigger machine.

Yes.

But knowing that the machine needs you.

Exactly. So here's something you need to remember about reviews. A review shouldn't be a report card. It should be a roadmap.

I get PTSD about report cards.

Yes. I have ulcers because of report cards. So remind yourself that. So the roadmap asks, where are you now? Where are you going? And how does this job help you get there? That's leadership. It's not paperwork. Explanation. The second a is anticipation. And that's the no surprises rule. Okay. One of the biggest review mistakes leaders make is using reviews as a first notice of a performance issue. And that's not a review. That's an ambush.

But it's so funny.

That's another A.

There's so many reviews that I walked into where I always thought, I wonder how my review's going to look, because I hadn't the foggiest idea.

Exactly. People should know. It should never be a surprise. Feedback should be ongoing. I mean, in our organization, we have quarterly conversations that are at least an hour, and then we have ongoing conversations. We have touch points. The review is the pause and reflect, not the shock and shame.

Yep.

Okay, so research from Journal of Applied Psychology. I felt like you needed references this week. I thought it was really interesting.

I know it's helpful, so.

Because I feel like in reviews, we're like, show me the data, or at least tell me. Okay. Journal of Applied Psychology shows that employees respond best to performance feedback when it's frequent and based on specific behaviors rather than annual evaluations. This also goes for parenting and marriages and relationships. Constant feedback is really good. Okay. This can help on all fronts.

How many times have you given an employee review? Or like, I remember, I would receive one, and they'd be like, hey, you should be more courteous to the customers. Great. That would last until the end of the day.

Exactly. Keep talking. Be consistent. Leadership is about consistency, not confrontation. So if someone's hearing everything for the first time in a performance review, that's not leadership. That's silence. It's not support. So you've got to be supportive. All right. If you want to. I mean, leadership silence, not leadership support. If you are surprising someone in a performance review.

Yeah, don't do that.

No anticipation.

Surprise.

Exactly.

Bunch of random numbers. Well.

And I've been on both sides of that table. I've been blindsided, and I've accidentally blindsided someone else because I avoided the hard talk. And that's the big thing, Josh, is that often when it comes to performance reviews, you have delayed having an uncomfortable conversation for way longer than you should have. And Then it becomes this, this blow up. And this is why half of the population hates performance reviews, because most. That's more than half. 98% according to Gallup, because 14% are liars.

So I, I had to push that. No, I get is we've avoided the.

Sweaty 10 minute conversation, so now we have communication issues. And so the last A is advancement. And that is moving from evaluation to development. And this is the shift that changes everything from judging what happened to building what's next. So this is why when we talk about advancement, why it is development over evaluation. So reviews have to answer three questions, and they really only have to answer three questions. What are you doing? Well, what needs improvement and what support do you need?

Next.

That's it. What are you doing? Well, what do you need to improve on and what support do you need? How can we help?

That's it.

Yeah. Humans aren't widgets. We're learners. So when you approach a review as development, you're creating growth as opposed to dread. Reviews should come with a training and development plan. I again continue to be the proponent of professional development. And I'm going to confess, in my career, I've treated reviews like most companies do, like it's a task to check off. And then I realized I'm the reason that really great employees thought they were failing, because I didn't tell them that they were doing a good job. I only ever said something once a year or never, because annual reviews don't have to be annual. Sometimes people don't get reviews, ever. And that was on me. That wasn't on them. That was my fault. I did it wrong. And so this has taught me that. And I'm reminding myself right now because we're working on some of these things too. If leadership isn't intentional about feedback and frequency or purpose, you can unintentionally break that trust. And you can be trying to do everything right, but if you don't communicate and build that trust, it can't be. It doesn't operate in a vacuum. So reviews aren't the villain. Poor leadership is. So again, we're talking about advancement, anticipation and alignment.

It's funny you say some of that too, because there's so many times when we're recording something where I'm like, oh shit, I need to work on that too.

When I was prepping for this podcast, when you sent it to me, I was like, oh, that's timely.

Put that in the task list. And it's one of the things that I love about doing the podcast because to me, it's it for. For both of us.

Yeah.

It is that review that we need. And it is. It's talking out loud about the stuff we need to do in our business.

Exactly.

We don't as business owners, typically, we're sitting alone in a dark room, like at a. With a screen in front of us like, oh, yes, this is what I have.

How do I deal with this? I don't want to.

Whereas here we're talking about it. And that makes perfect sense. I love it. Absolutely love it.

So, Josh, you've instituted specific systems for how to do this. So how do we take this from burden, the hatred of having to do the reviews and turn it into a tool so we just get it done and it's not scary and it's not frustrating.

There's a couple of things. The first piece that I love is I do things quarterly.

Same.

It's the quarterly cadence instead of the annual autopsy. Telling someone, hey, you suck, once a year is not going to make them better. Telling them, hey, you're amazing once a year isn't going to keep them working for you to give that feedback that often. It just doesn't. It doesn't work at all.

No.

The other piece to that is too, is I have seen so many cases where like, first quarter and we'll get into the 1, 2, 3. But someone's below expectations.

Yeah.

The second quarter they met expectations. The third quarter they met expectations. Maybe the fourth quarter they met or exceeded expectations.

Yeah.

They would have gone the whole year sucking.

They stink. Yep.

If we didn't give them that correction at the end of the first quarter.

Exactly.

It also, additionally, it keeps their goals hot. It keeps them reminded of stuff you talked about communication. It has to be that communication. Constantly letting them know, hey, here's what we need. Here's what you need. Here's where we need to be. Here's what we need to be doing. I mean, those are the types of things that are so easy to lose sight of.

It speaks to consistency in the three Cs of leadership.

100% more. I get another letter person out here.

Yeah, you do. Consistency, clarity and care. We Talked about those three Cs of leadership a lot.

And then they're wonderful. Which is why to me, the other piece of it is too, is, like I said, there's that communication. It gives you quantifiable measurements.

Yeah.

If you say like, and I'm going to use the bad example here, if you're going to give someone a 2% raise at the end of the year. You can't just be like, hey, you kind of sucked for part of the year. You can go back and say, look, each one of the three quarters we told you that you needed to improve in this area.

Yeah.

And it didn't happen. We. And as long as you can say in your, like, as long as you can do this and say, we've done everything to support you in these areas, you can go back and look and say, hey, this was ones all year long.

Yeah.

I mean, if, if you, if you take and do four reviews and that totals up to be your annual review. If it's a 12, awesome. If it's a 6, great. If it's a 4. Right. Yeah. So we missed something here.

Well, I'm reminding yourself, most people have to hear something 10 times before they truly absorb and understand it. You have to be willing to have those conversations over and over.

Yep. And that's. That's a big piece of it. So once again, you can look it. This gives you a record. This gives you one of Chrissy's probably fourth or fifth favorite words. Documentation.

Yes. Document.

I made sure I did. I read that appropriately.

I think it is. I think it's probably number four.

Okay. Yes. So you have given documentation. Glad I got in the right range on that. I would have felt terrible if I was wrong on that. You know, they're like, no, it's 10. But yeah, you've got that documentation to go with that. Because then the problem is too, is what happens to. At the end of the year, you're doing all these reviews, you've had a bad day, you're grumpy as hell, and you're like, one, one, one, one, one. And you don't have the rest of the year to go back and look at it. And suddenly you've screwed someone out of their raise. You've given someone a bad feedback, bad review just because of the fact, you know what, you had a bad morning. And maybe throughout the year it was a 1 2, 12 year. But give them the 1 2, 12 year, not the 1 1, 1 1, because you were grumpy that morning. Or maybe they, I don't know, maybe they said something you didn't like. Maybe. I mean, don't go off of that last week. No, we want to go off the full year.

Yeah.

Additionally, you're going to have some KPIs. Those shouldn't be the only thing dictating all of this. But whether it be sales, whether it be calls, whether it's just general productivity, I Mean, how many trucks came in and out of the shop? How many podcasts did they edit accurately? How many whatevers did, did they do? Look at those numbers. Are those numbers at above or below what you expect?

And how are they leading managing if they're a leader or manager or how are they just doing their job? Through your core values.

Correct.

If teamwork is a core value and they refuse to do anything in a team setting, that maybe did not mean expectations.

No, no. The attitude of that too is, is something that. And that's why too, I always say it needs to be quarterly because.

Yeah.

How are you looking at these things? Do you come in every day?

Yes.

It's probably a one. Yeah. If you come in like ready to do my thing. Okay, that's probably a two. If you come in like, hey, let's go, how can I help people? That's a three. These are squishy categories.

They are.

But if you just do that on, hey, this is how I feel this week and maybe last week. You're not going to do it.

Right.

You need, you need to look at this over the full length of the year. Yes, we've talked about the three tiered system.

Yes. I know you like this. Don't make it a continuum.

No. And I mean I get that like you could make it a two tier system. Yes. No, but you could.

But that makes it.

But I feel like if someone's going above and beyond, we need to make sure that we note that also.

Correct.

I've been in systems where they've had four and five. Like the most common that I've seen is five tiers.

Yeah.

There's meets expectations, slightly exceeds expectation, greatly.

Exceeds expectation with no definition as to what the heck either. What those are.

No. And in most cases you're guessing.

You're just guessing.

They haven't defined the expectations.

Yeah. You have a job description that is meets expectations.

Correct. Correct. If they are. And I mean there are so many times where I got didn't meet expectations on one or two small things.

But I'm not going to tell you why and I'm not going to tell you how to meet expectations. I'm just going to say you didn't meet them.

Correct.

I hate those people.

Just, I mean, just to give you a couple of dings and to make sure you, you don't walk out of the meeting happy.

Exactly. Well, and I would say too, when you have a two tiered system, it is very dangerous because I'm sorry, people are human. Not everyone is going to perform well Every quarter, things can happen to derail you. Life happens. You may have a parent that gets sick. You may have a baby, you may have a child graduating from high school or college and transition. Like, there may be things that are happening in your life that may pull your focus. And that doesn't mean that you're a bad employee or a completely awful performer. It just means that you're human. So being able to have that cadence of quarterly and then even being able to go back and say, hey, what's going on? I've noticed a change in your performance. What's going on? Some of it could be, well, I'm working next to this. We got a new manager that doesn't know how to manage. That may be it.

That happened from the last episode.

From the last episode. It could also be, hey, I'm going through this transition with my family. Or we've had. I've been dealing with this really difficult client. Or we're having issues in our software and our scheduling. And it is. It is making things difficult. You've got to be able to ask those questions and have those conversations. Otherwise everything's a surprise. Yeah, you don't want that.

No, it's funny, too. The. The other thing is, too, is I like the simplicity of the three piece because there's times where, like I said that the one company, I was always top five and salesman out of 100 and some odd salespeople.

Yeah.

On my sales ability, I would get a four.

What? How was that supposed to mean?

And I'm like, what the hell?

You can always improve. There's always those jerks that are like, I'm never going to give you a perfect score because you can always get better.

That was it.

Yeah, I can.

That was it, you jerk. But no, no one in the company got a five. Why the hell have it exactly. Like, it's just this. I mean, this is the carrot that is attached on a fishing pole to the donkey's back.

Yeah. No and no one be Lucy with the football. We're always going to move it. Here's the goal post. We're going to move the goal post again. We're going to move them again. We're going to move them again.

Correct.

That breeds dissension and hatred.

And that's exactly.

Why doesn't anybody like their manager? Oh, I don't know.

That is exactly what it did.

It's gross.

Yeah. No, it was terrible. It was awful. It was absolutely awful. The other thing that I like about the 1, 2, 3 system is it's Easy to track. There's times where you're like, oh, look, this is a surprise performer. Their KPIs may not be like, their production may not be the top level production. They're dealing with customers may not be the top level of dealing with customers, but when you look, they may be the most helpful person. They are the most consistent that most consistent. They, they're the most something. And if, if you've got someone that, okay, they're, they're not the best with customers. They, they do okay. They may not produce the most, but they do okay. But holy cow, they help support the entire rest of the staff.

Yes.

You're like, you need to have a way to look at that and be, be like, oh, yeah, this is why I keep this person.

Because I'm the emotional anchor. Right.

They could be the one that offers stability. They could be the one that offers, I mean, just that rock solid, like emotional stability. They could be the one that calms another person down.

They're the utility player. They can, you can move them within the organization to help at any given project. No, they're not the rock star, but they support the rock star at any given time in any. We have someone in our organization. It was funny. He came in today, he's like, I kill bugs. I pick up Chipotle and I make sure everyone gets enrolled in Medicare. We're like, and that is why you will be here forever, because you are willing to do all of the things. Absolutely love him.

Yeah. No, those are three very, very important things.

I think so. Especially in an office.

And I mean, do you have a KPI for killing bugs?

No, but we have a KPI for teamwork. And he does it. All the team things kills it.

I mean, killing bugs and getting Chipotle, I mean, that's a three on teamwork.

I agree.

Yeah. No, just without even thinking about it. But those are the things that once again, like, do those probably detract from his other productivity? Yes.

Yes.

Does it make 10 other people more productive?

Yes.

Also.

Yes. Is he there specifically to support other people? Yes. So he is doing his job and he is doing it well.

Yeah. That is one of those things that I think is often lost on so many people when they just look at one thing and it is. And this is why I like that three tiered. The three tiered system is because it allows you to just say, oh, they're above and beyond here and very quickly and simply without being like, well, I've got five things to choose from. It's like a Three and a half ish or. Yeah. No, just say yes. Just say yes and do the things and be good with that.

Yes.

And additionally now you know that that has happened over the year or maybe you saw an attitude shift from them over the year. That's once again, it's one of those things that you need to do, you need to look at. The other big thing is too is that I always say when you give someone a one, you need to look and say they didn't meet expectations.

Why?

Why did you give clear expectations? Because in many cases you're the problem. I have looked and seen like, okay, are they my best worker? No. Are they, do they do things this way? No. In the same sense, did I tell them exactly what to do? Yeah, maybe not. And it's something to me that like when you give an employee review, you kind of need to look at yourself too because they are your responsibility. And if like if you are seeing that they aren't meeting expectations in one or two areas, you kind of got to realize maybe that's on me. It's a tough thing to look at. It is, it really is that I hate that damn mirror. The other thing that I always like to say too is like reviews give you kind of that talent inventory. Go ahead, put all of the reviews in one spreadsheet. Oh, spreadsheet. Yes, put all those numbers in spreadsheets. Look at where strengths are, look at where weaknesses are. You're going to see like looking at those numbers just as a whole, just some of that data. Oh, I mean first off, it'll tell you where high performing managers are. It'll tell you where you're. I mean it'll tell you where your talents are. It'll also tell you where, hey, some of your weaknesses are. If you see a couple of ones in a spot, especially not just one employee. If you see a couple of ones in a spot, guess what? You the problem potentially.

Yes. You, you are not clarified.

No. So the one thing that I, I would love to go cover for the both of us and this is always interesting like as a kid and I know this is going to hurt me saying this. What would happen if you would have gotten a meets expectation as a kid? Oh, you would have lost your.

Well, that's why I had an ulcer in fifth grade. Yeah.

Chrissy, Chrissy would have ended up up in a padded room.

It was bad.

No, I, to me. But that's, I mean, yeah, like don't give away three sparingly. No, but by golly, you did exactly what we asked of you this year, thank you for doing exactly what we asked of you.

Yes. And I think we can. We can probably thank the American education system for screwing some of this up for people in general. We'll just yell at them right now. Why not? Because meets expectations needs to be celebrated.

Yes.

It is not.

It's good.

It's not failure.

You did what we wanted.

It is. We need to normalize. Meets expectations that this is not a failure. It is stability. And that is what we want in our organization. If everyone has to be above expectations to feel valued, you're burning people out fast. Strong cultures celebrate reliability, not just heroics. You want everybody in your organization to have ulcers, too? Then meet expectations is failure.

The funny thing is this comes back to. There was a study that was done, I believe it was the University of Chicago a number of years ago. Did you know 80% of drivers consider themselves above average?

That doesn't surprise me.

No. But when you do that math, 80% cannot be above average.

No. And the problem is that perception is I'm above. Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Everyone has been told, like you said, that exceeds expectations. That's what we were told in grade school. You have to exceed expectations. Otherwise you're useless.

Yes.

And I, like, look you, like, I am overjoyed when someone meets my expectations. I like you ended up exactly where I wanted you to be. Oh, my gosh.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yes.

And you don't want. You don't want a full team of exceeds Expectations.

No. Because then they're going 52 different directions.

You will hate your life. You will.

Well, more.

Yeah, More. Don't do it. Because that's the other part. Like, and if you. If everybody exceeds expectations, then your standards may be too low. That's the other part is you've got to think about that if maybe you have a really low bar. You showed up on time for your job. Congratulations day. You exceed expectations. No, that's. No.

No. I don't put attendance as one of those things.

No. But there are organizations that do. And you only had one unexcused absence that exceeds expectations. No. You had none. You had none. You showed up on time. You did the things that you. Congratulations. That is meets expectations. Because the expectation is that you're going to show up and you're going to do the things and you're going to do them on time.

Correct.

That's not.

That is. Yes. No.

Correct.

Is not. That is not below expectations, meets expectations or exceeds expectations. That's. You did it. Or you didn't.

Or, you know, you were. You did such a good job in customer development and service that no one screamed and yelled at you. That's not. That's not. That doesn't help either. You've got to be able to quantify these things. Thank you for not firing a client. You know, sometimes that's the right thing to do. Like, you've got to be able to have definitions for these things. The bar has to be. If. For exceeds expectations, the bar has to be pretty high.

Yeah.

And if everybody's exceeding them, then you either you have a team of rock stars, congratulations, you may be tired, or you have. You've set the bar too low.

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I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show. Those are people that are very unfamiliar with the bell curve.

Yes.

And the problem is with it, once again, it is going to go back to the Meets Expectations stigma. They're like, oh, I. Everyone should feel like a winner.

Well, this is where millennials get in trouble. And I will yell at my own generation. It's because everybody wants a trophy. And we're like, okay, we'll just give it to everybody. No, you can't give it to everybody. This is why we have problems in management right now.

Yeah. No Gen Xers. We were told to drink from the garden hose and suck it up.

I know. I'm married to one. It tells me all the time that my life was soft. It's a great time.

Mine was in some ways, too. But, yeah, that's. I totally get it. But I was also told to walk it off more times than not and just suck it up, kid. I really am excited to get into this one. Is tying reviews to compensation.

Yeah.

Yay. Nay. Like, should you do it the same day? Should you.

So here's what I will say, is it is okay to have to tie it to compensation if you are doing the quarterly into the annual. So I mean, as much as people are like, annual reviews are stupid. No, they're not stupid. When you do the quarterlies with them.

Correct.

So this is my soapbox. So when you combine the review and the raise conversation, people really can stop hearing that feedback. So all they hear is the money. What's the money? What's the money? What's the money? So you have to have performance conversations that are not always tied to compensation. And check ins are key here, that's why you do it. So I mean, I've heard it referred to as money ear. You know, once compensation enters the room, development leaves it. They can't, they can't be together. So if you want honest dialogue, you, you kind of have to separate those conversations to a degree, which is why you have check ins. You know, this is what you're doing, this is how it's going. And especially if you've got individuals that are not meeting expectations, you're allowing them to course, correct?

Yes.

So it gives them the opportunity potentially to get to exceeds expectations, which could mean that they're going to have a better performance review at the annual and then they're potentially going to get a bigger raise. It's really, you gotta have the conversation about growth. So, you know, honest dialogue, you separate those conversations. One is about growth, the other one's about reward. When you mix them both, every time it gets muddy, it's not clear.

It's funny because in so many cases, when I was getting my annual review, I'm like, okay, just get to the, get to the point.

Slide it across to me and just tell me what my number is, right?

And it's because it was an annual review and I knew there was nothing I could do to change or affect it. It just was what it was. So just tell me the damn number and let me get on with my life.

Can I tell you a mistake that a lot of family businesses do?

Let's hear this.

They don't even do the review, they just give the raise. And so it's the surprise, you have a raise in your check. You're like, oh, thanks. So then there's nothing tied to it. It's just like. But they don't want to have a conversation, they don't want to do anything. It's almost like, oh, okay. So it becomes an expectation. Same thing with when we do like holiday bonuses and we just bonus based on, you know, because it's the holiday, not because there's been a performance thing tied to it. So then there's this expectation that every holiday you're supposed to get that whether the business is performing well or not performing well, mistakes we make that we have to, we have to live with. Later we can talk about the year that I took everyone's holiday bonus away because I bought the business and went, this is dumb. We're not doing this anymore. This costs us tens of thousands of dollars and gets us nothing. So we're going to raise wages, we're going to figure out how to do performance reviews, and we're going to continue to move forward. But you would have thought that I single handedly shot Santa.

So I, I, so I have a question.

Yeah.

And I'm going to make a movie reference with this. And you already know where I'm going. Did you send them Jelly of the Month Club?

No, I did not. I did not. I went, look, this is something that we've done in the past. I know it is an expectation. This is not something that we're going to do anymore. But instead of you getting X amount of dollars, this is what it will be tied to and this is what we move forward with. And I had three people that were really mad. Ironically, they were not our good performers. So, I mean, we walk through it.

Yep.

And that's something, I mean, you have to be able to fix. When you talk about the business fix. That was something that I had to fix. It was not fun, but I fixed it. I also had a really great HR consultant called Julie Wheeler that helped me through it.

So put, put your hard hat on and just.

It was. You were gonna walk through the storm. I knew which way the umbrella was, was pointed because I knew which way the wind was blowing.

Buckle up. Here's the. The. I still remember when I was at the truck dealership, I instituted the quarterly reviews.

Yeah.

And when I met with all of the managers about this, the eye roll.

Why are you giving me more work to do?

Oh, my. The pushback that I got was absolutely ridiculous. And so I was very quick before, before they were even able to breathe and object. I said, look, these are going to be numbered reviews. Because the problem is, is they had done that. The long form annual review that every HR person loves to hand out. That is the five blanks. And then it has the fill in the blank space.

Don't we love the essay?

Yeah, do the essay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I told I, I'm like, this is going to be very simple. It was, I believe it was five or six topics. One, two, three. One, two, three. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. One, 2, 3. And there was a space for comments, if you would like.

Yeah.

And I put comments, comma, not required.

Ours is one page that this fit.

On one page also. Because I was like, look, this is something. And because once again, the first time they did it, they're like, this isn't that bad.

That.

No. But then when it came time for the annual review.

So easy.

Yeah. They're like, okay, basic math. Basic math. Basic math, Basic math. Okay, another. And we had a space. We had, we had three lines for three different areas to comment on. And I'm like, one sentence. The less you say here, the better. I don't want an essay. I want one sentence about their. About what they did well. About what they can improve on and about what, what we see for the new year for them well.

And you're sharing with the team member too. So then they know this is how I'm performing. This is the direction it's going. If they're continuing to fail, they're probably going to exit themselves.

Correct. Yeah. No, it was, it was. Once again, it was rather than them having to spend two hours per employee once a year, they spent five minutes per employee five, four times a year. Do that math. They saved a lot of time and they knew it. Not to mention my HR person, she was like, once she got things in order on how to file them and everything became super easy for her and she's like, oh, I'm not filing books.

No.

Anymore.

No.

It became super, super, super easy. That's. Just make it simple for people.

Yeah. Reduce anxiety. Consistency beats intensity every time.

Oh, it does it. It definitely does. It definitely does. Because there's days I show up in the gym and I am not terribly intense, but I'm there every day. Most every day.

Small steps, big wins.

Right. I also like cookies. So there's, there's, there's that juxtaposition problem.

Is what it is.

Some key takeaways. The one, like I said, shorten the form. If your review is longer than one page, you're. First off, you're doing too much and it's probably unnecessary.

Yeah.

We're going to go back to one of the 10,000 small businesses things. EEC.

Yes.

Effective, efficient, compelling.

Correct. Wonderful.

One page. It's done.

Yes. So I would say reviews require management development. Feedback is a skill, not a person. Personality trait.

Oh.

So, yeah, if you expect managers to give good reviews, you have to train.

Them on how to give good reviews.

Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. No, they just don't.

Yeah.

Come out of the womb. No, with a.

With a.

No, with a review.

Generally, everybody sucks at it at first. And that's okay.

No, and it's fine. 100. The other thing, schedule it now. Don't wait for reviews season. Don't wait and be like, oh, damn it. Supposed to do reviews next week. Put it on your calendar now.

Everybody's getting ready to exit for the end of the year. And you're like, oh, let's do this. December 24th. Here's your review form.

You're like, oh, Merry Christmas.

Yeah, there's a lot of Merry Christmas words.

So. Yeah, no, I. To me, I always just say, like, make it a reoccurring appointment on your calendar. Reoccurring appointment every three months.

Yeah.

Done.

Yeah, it's easy.

Done.

I would say reviews, too. They reinforce the three Cs of leadership. So great reviews reinforce those three Cs. Clarity. Here's what success looks like. Consistency. No surprises. And care. Growth matters here. When you hit all three, it stops feeling like HR homework and it starts feeling like leadership in action.

Did you say clarity there? Yes, I believe you did.

I did. Clarity, consistency, and care. And if you need help with your hr, you can call Clarity. If you're a small business owner navigating the world of marketing or looking to establish yourself as an industry expert, you already know the power of a great podcast.

But getting it all right from the sound of the strategy can be a headache. And that's where Pedal Stopper Productions comes in. We're the team behind the business fix and Chrissy's Better Business for Small Business Leaders podcast.

One of the things I love about what you do, Josh, is that you're always willing to help out. And part of that is with your free 30 minute no pitch podcast consultation.

That's right. 30 minutes of our best tips, tricks and podcasting basics. Absolutely no strings attached. Just podcasting insights to help you crush your goals. Visit pedalstomperproductions.com to book your no pitch call today. That is pedal stomper productions.com.

And now back to the show.

I always enjoy setting you up for those. The other thing. Standardize the tears.

Yeah.

Three tiered system. Take the emotion out of it. Take the guesswork out of it.

Yeah.

You've got three options. I mean. Yes. Awesome. No, that's it. Pretty easy to go through those three.

Yeah. And then the two way street hat. Make sure that every review includes a section for the implementation employee to review. The company or the manager. You want feedback as well?

Yes. Find a good way to do that. We're going to talk about how to do that because I probably like Nora's sitting behind the engineering desk right now and if I said, hey, go ahead and give me a review right now and just slid that paper across the desk and loomed over her shoulder and watched her.

No, there's a right way to do that. There's a very wrong way to do it. Correct.

And there are so many wonderful insights Instagram memes out there about in surveys where it says HR does not know who's filling this out and then it shows like the manager sitting. Absolutely. Yeah. No, you have to make it in a way that they are comfortable with. So yeah, that is a big thing. Yeah, here's one that I think we may differ on.

Okay.

Self evaluations.

Okay.

Waste of time. Or are they a window into employees soul?

So I think they're a window always, which is why we're probably gonna disagree. I don't care if I agree with their assessment at all. What matters to me is how they see themselves. Now if I, I can tell if someone's half assing it or if they've used ChatGPT, they're mailing it in. They're mailing it in. So. But it does, what it gives you is it tells you confidence, awareness and where coaching potentially needs to start. So I want a perspective of do you think you're performing well or do you not think you're performing well? And if you're telling me that you're performing well and I know you're delusional, I at least know how to have that conversation often too. It's a really great indicator of those individuals that have low self confidence.

Interesting. I didn't think of that aspect of it. But for me in most cases I don't need to ask.

You don't. But it's always good.

See, I'm a big.

You can read it. Yeah, good leaders can.

Well, and I'm bigger on the consistent actions speak so much louder than words do. And people are going to put something on a piece of paper that may not be exactly. It could be fluffy, it could be whatever and it could steer things. I feel like watching them gives you a much more honest perception of it and that's just, that's the way.

No, I don't disagree. I think watching is really important. What I do like is the asking because I want to know what that self reflection and interpretation is. Especially if we have different learning styles, different communication styles, it may give me a different window into what they're doing. Especially introvert versus extrovert.

Makes sense.

So I'm going to ask you a question. I don't think we're going to disagree on it, but if we do, I want to talk. Should you ever give a review via email or Slack?

Only if you want them to leave. I just. To me, I feel like there's. This is a personal thing and like, you can't. We just talked about them mailing in their. Their opinions of themselves. You can't mail in their opinion of them. Your opinion of them either. They have to know that you are standing behind this.

Yeah.

If you just send them a flyer in the mail that says, hey, here's what I think of you. No, that means.

And I've done it wrong.

Absolutely nothing. So, yeah, if. If, if the tone, the context, how you.

Yes.

How you do it. Yeah. If. If you. Like I said, if you really want to get rid of the person and feel like, hey, I'm. I'm going to tell them to go to hell, that's how you do it. Now this is another one.

Yeah.

Peer reviews.

Oh, yeah. Thoughts like, are they good? Are they bad? So what you're asking me.

Yep.

So I would say it depends on the structure. They can be good or they can be an absolute disaster. When you have peer feedback that is guided and values based on it can build trust. When it's vague or anonymous without any guardrails.

If it's fill in a blank.

If it's fill in a blank, it fuels politics. So I would say process really matters in this type of situation. And this is one of those where you're like, we're going to do peer reviews. We've never done it before. You need to call an HR consultant to help you do that. You're going to screw it up. And you can create a hostile work environment. You can open yourself up to litigation, and you could open yourself up to people just leaving because you were dumb and didn't explain the things well, or you did it wrong. You did it really wrong.

I have been asked to give peer reviews before not realizing that the peers did not want said reviews.

Yes.

And in some cases, this may come as a shock to you.

You were direct.

My tone may have come across in how the. The peer review was presented to them.

Yes.

You want to talk about a way to just kick a hornet's nest.

Yes.

That was awful. Because like everyone, like I once again, this. I thought they wanted honest feedback.

Yes.

They did not. They did not.

Well, and like a lot of times, like executive directors of nonprofits they get told by their boards they have to do 360 feedback. I've done this to people that I have managed on and on boards. And what I say is that let's fill out the form. And then I always, in comments say I am happy to have a conversation either in person with this person or with the person who is getting the data. Because tone and tenor and how I'm explaining it in dialogue is very different than how I explain it on paper.

Yes.

So 100%. You got to look at how the context is going to be framed.

100%. Yeah, it was. It was interesting. It was the same thing. It's like HR would love your opinion about the company.

They're like, no, they don't.

We had something recently where there was a survey and I. It was a. It was an organization where that had. Something had gone sideways for me and they sent me a feedback survey and I texted you a picture saying where they said, we'd love your opinion. And I text you the picture.

No, you do not.

I don't. I don't think they really do. I really don't think they do.

And I texted you back and said, don't.

That being said, we would absolutely love your opinions. We would love your feedback. We'd love your. What are the reviews? Yeah, reviews, comments. By all means, we love getting the comments.

Unless you say I'm a cult leader, then I'm not nice to you.

Yeah, but still, I mean, there's times. There's times.

Yes. This is a happy.

Right, right, right. There's no Kool Aid in involved. So everyone, it's all good. Do us a favor. Go to Business Fix podcast. Business Fix podcast.com. i went too fast there for my own face. Imagine that. Hit us on all the social medias at the Business Fix next week. Conflict resolution. How we're going to do this is. Christy and I are going to go back out and duke it out.

Be fun.

Do me a favor, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too, we will see you very, very soon. I'm going to go ahead and get feedback from Nora right now.

I can't wait to.

Sam.