{"id":36646,"date":"2021-10-21T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T09:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/?p=36646"},"modified":"2021-10-21T10:00:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T09:00:36","slug":"self-assessments-performance-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/blog\/self-assessments-performance-review\/","title":{"rendered":"How self-assessments can lead to better performance review conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Asking employees to evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses provides a great opportunity for reflection and goal setting. But employees often see self-assessments as a colossal waste of time for everyone involved. An employee may spend hours writing an assessment that goes unread, or they might feel like they are doing their manager&#8217;s job for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Like most forms of evaluation and assessment, there are some pros and cons. Executives, HR leaders, and managers should be wary of potential pitfalls and use the research on self-assessments to best structure their own when conducting performance reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The benefits of self-assessment<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Let\u2019s focus on the positive and start with the pros. Encouraging employees to reflect on what they\u2019ve done well on and where they can improve is a great way to prompt personal observation, assessment, and motivation. Here are a few other benefits to self-assessment as part of a larger performance review process.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Employees may not be in the habit of looking at their own work product, skills, and behaviors objectively. Giving them space to do this can open up possibilities for improvement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Employees have an opportunity to remind managers of accomplishments or even past behavior, which could reduce \u201crecency bias\u201d in the manager&#8217;s appraisal.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Employees can also identify certain blind spots where they feel ill-equipped or lack confidence, and the manager is completely unaware.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">A self-assessment that doesn\u2019t line up with the manager&#8217;s viewpoint could indicate a lack of alignment around expectations.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Can employees accurately self-assess? A few cons\u2026<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">One reason for including a self-assessment is to gather more data on an individual\u2019s performance. The real question is: can employees actually provide accurate self-assessments?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"_e75a791d-denali-editor-page-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2011\/07\/lets-abolish-self-appraisal.html?registration=success\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Multiple studies demonstrate<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0how bad people are at evaluating their own performance. Employees may not see their behaviors and work objectively, or worse, fail to make an honest assessment because they fear negative consequences. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">According to\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"_e75a791d-denali-editor-page-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/pdfs.semanticscholar.org\/dd43\/0c484169547026b888b7bf3d46c116e01b45.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">research by the consulting firm Lominger, Inc<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, \u201cthe overall correlation between self-ratings and performance was .00, with the boss being the most accurate rater by far in predicting long-term performance.\u201d I<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">n addition to wildly inaccurate self-appraisals, there are even more cons:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Employees may hesitate giving themselves positive feedback for fear of sounding like a braggart. They might even focus more on negative assessments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Companies will often take the evaluations, but not really use them in any meaningful way.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Making self-assessments worth the effort<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">If you are going to continue the practice of self-assessments or implement a self-assessment process in your performance evaluations, there are a few ways to make them more relevant and impactful:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Share self-assessments with managers after they&#8217;ve drafted the review.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">When deciding if your HR department will have self-evaluations as part of a performance review, consider how that information will be processed and reviewed. Will the assessment be shared with the manager, and if so, when? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">In some cases, HR teams don\u2019t share self-assessments with managers until their own reviews are complete or almost complete to prevent any anchoring bias. (Side note: Our\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"_e75a791d-denali-editor-page-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/features\/performance-reviews\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">performance management software<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0enables managers to hide self-assessments while they are writing their own.)<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Broaden the scope of reviews<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">One way to make self-assessments more meaningful is to ask employees to dig deeper into their career goals. Instead of focusing exclusively on completed work or the tasks at hand, consider asking whether their assignments are in line with their long-term goals. Is there a way to provide more training or align work so that they are hitting their career goals? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">A self-evaluation that is not solely focused on the job helps employees focus on their futures. This can also get them thinking about how to enhance their skillsets through certifications, training, or taking on new assignments.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Open the conversation<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">A crucial benefit of self-assessments is the invitation to open up a dialogue around an employee\u2019s performance and experience. It might be the first insight a manager has into an employee\u2019s perception of the quality and quantity of their work. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">This gets managers and reports talking about priorities, whether members are on track, what needs more attention, and where performance is surpassing or failing to meet expectations.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Stay positive but ask the hard questions<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">You want the self-assessments to do some work for you, and this means asking hard questions. What are the core strengths and weaknesses of an employee? What could they specifically have done better? What can the employee do in the next year to make themselves more valuable? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Ask these questions, but also be sure to include questions that yield positive assessments: what they have done well, where they see themselves as an asset, and what they bring to the team.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Reflection is never easy, but it&#8217;s good for us<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Yes, filling out a self-assessment form can feel tedious or difficult at times. Reflection is hard, and it doesn&#8217;t come naturally to a lot of people. But asking employees to take the time to reflect and articulate where they think they&#8217;re at in terms of their performance and career goals can make the review conversations much richer and more useful for employees.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many employees tend to dread evaluating themselves. Luckily, there are some ways you can keep self-assessments honest and effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":36693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feedback","category-performance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.small-improvements.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}