Implementation of the Performance Review process in middle-sized companies from scratch. Our experience.
Published: 2022-05-24 00:20:54

There are many articles and speeches from conferences on the Internet about how the performance review process works in large market leader companies. This article considers the possibilities and ways to implement this process in small and medium-sized companies.

We faced the need to deploy the performance review process when the company had about 350 employees. Once a year or half a year managers met with developers from different departments, discussed what had been done since their last meeting and talked over the development plan for the future. There was no feedback accumulation system and, accordingly, the process could not be considered objective. Even though the company had a grading system (Junior Developer, Senior Developer, etc.), each manager conducted an assessment based on subjective perception and on the information that he saw himself or received from the employee.

As the number of projects that employees work on alone increases, so does the subjectivity in making decisions about employee performance. Hence, the number of undervalued promising employees who may leave the company also increases. Demotivation occurs since employees do not see a “fair” reward for their merits, comparing their position with the positions of colleagues from other departments. In addition, overvalued employees with subjective managers also do not bring the proper benefits. On a company scale, even a medium-sized one, this is a blow to the business.

Thus, all the prerequisites for the implementation of the Performance Review process were formed. We studied the experience of our colleagues on the market. After a series of discussions with department heads, the company’s top management, and after surveys among employees, it was decided to make a pilot project for 3 teams. Changing established processes is difficult, so here is to confirm:

We did not have a ready-made system. We analysed possible cloud solutions and decided not to spend the budget on buying/ developing our system for the pilot, but to arm ourselves with Google tables and surveys.

On the appointed date, employees received an email where they were supposed to write a Self Review. Each employee is to describe his achievements, as well as failures, and how his activities in the last period were in accordance with the goals set at the beginning. An employee also has to select respondents.

Then, the manager sends the letters to the respondents with separate forms where it is necessary to evaluate the work of the employee, choosing an assessment from the gradation (0-5:
Well below expectations
Below expectations
Meets expectations
Above expectations
Well above expectations
(0) Difficult to rate

The manager also needs to give a detailed description that he subsequently uses when summing up the results and setting goals for the next period. After receiving feedback, the manager summarises the result in a table.

The next step was to scale the implementation throughout the entire company. 

At this stage, the main thing was to enlist the support of more than 50% of managers to be able to involve as many employees as possible in the work. It was needed to “sell” our experience to other managers and the top management of the company. To do this, I used an integrated approach – made a presentation for the managers, had a One on One with each manager to talk about the experience in detail, answer questions and involve each of them in the joint work.

Summing up. The development of our own system. 

After successful pilot phases, we decided the Performance Review process was a company’s standard. The labour costs for “manual” work on parsing reviews and feedback were already significant, so we started looking for ready-made solutions on the market. Many providers allow requesting demo access.

A cloud solution can be a good choice for a young company with a young infrastructure. In our case, given that integration with many existing systems in the company was necessary, we decided to write our own solution.

Results

Employees got the opportunity to receive an objective assessment of their merits. We conducted an anonymous survey among employees and it turned out that the majority positively perceives the innovations.

The main advice when implementing the procedure is phasing and a creative approach. Keep in mind that an out-of-the-box solution may not work for you, and you will need to be flexible with such changes.