Exceptional Employee Performance Review Questions

As a manager or leader in life, we often think that part of the role is knowing all of the answers when someone asks us a question. We automatically go into "solution" mode when someone presents us with a question or problem. The challenge with this approach is that we are then creating dependence on ourselves rather than creating independence for the other person.
Human beings are funny creatures - we often learn best and more deeply by doing and experiencing something themselves. Think about when you learned how to ride a bike. Someone could tell you - well you sit here, balance yourself, push off then stick your feet on the pedals and then push the pedals around to propel you along. Great - but you only learned by getting on yourself and giving it a go (and falling off a few hundred times in the process).
You have experienced yourself the power of learning through personal experience. So, why do we still fall into the trap of thinking that we have to have an answer for everything anyone asks us? A powerful question at the right moment, which triggers thought and reflection and then action, will help a person learn more than if you just do it yourself.
How can you apply this to employee performance? When you sit down with your employee for their annual performance appraisal - how do you do it? Do you sit down and then start talking or listen and ask questions?
If you talk without listening, then you are not helping your employee to learn and improve their performance. So what do you ask? Here are a few of the questions that I have used over the years to help build relations with my team members, learn more about them and build their performance.

• Tell me your Myers Briggs/TMI profile and why it fits you (if you have done some form of profiling with your team members).


• What have you learnt about how you work in a team and how I can best work with you?


• What was your favourite task/role/project in the past 12 months and why? What made it so special? What made it successful? What did you do to make it work so well? These are great questions as they help you to find patterns of success. You get to learn what motivates your team member.


• What was your biggest mistake/regret of the past 12 months and what did you learn from it? Another great question. Often this will help identify areas you need to keep an eye on in the future. For example, was there a particular personality they couldn't work with, were they having problems with time management or trouble with balancing work and life? By having them reflect and learn from their mistakes you help teach that mistakes happen in life - it is what you do with them that are important.


• How do you like to be recognized/rewarded for a great job? Don't just talk the first answer with this. Dig a bit deeper and don't stay with "money" as the answer. Some people like to be praised in front of others - for other people public praise is a punishment and they would prefer to sink into the floor. How does this person like to hear/know they have done a great job?


• What is your future dream role? How can we put elements of this into your role? How can I help move you towards it? For this don't be limited again by the current job or role. I had one team member whose dream was to run their own business. By committing to help teach them basics of budgeting, planning and a few other skills that they would need in their business I retained an exceptional employee for another 2 years, rather than losing their skills and experience. By having this open conversation, I was also able then to grow a more junior employee to fill the role when the employee moved on.


• What have you done to deliver more value to this company than you did 3-6 months ago? With this question you are getting the employee to consider how they value add, rather than remain at the same level.


• What new skills have you learnt in the last year?


• Why do you stay with this company? Employee retention is a critical part of building a productive workforce. Find out what makes your employees stay and you will be half of the way towards retaining your best employees.


• What would lure you away to leave this company?


• If you won Lotto, what is 1 thing that would keep you from quitting your job?


• What would make your life easier at work? Often little things cause people to leave jobs - like simple problems with communication and poor work layout and design. Many times employees won't tell you these problems unless you specifically ask them. Make sure you always ask!


• How do you like to be managed? Am I watching too closely or not enough? Would you like more/less contact? This is often a hard question to ask and to hear the answer to. If you have built your relationship effectively, you may hear some problems with your management style. This is the time to listen and see if you can come up with a workable solution for both of you.

Once you have explored all of these areas then pursue the more traditional performance questions relating to tasks and targets and start by asking them how they think they went with these areas. Listen closely and only add in your two cents worth when you have clearly understood what they have said and why.
Ideally a performance discussion should be 80% the employee assessing and 20% you asking questions and adding in your comments and suggestions, as well as your perceptions. If you ask the right questions - you will build a stronger relationship with your employee and create more productive outcomes.

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