The Gen-Yers Guide to Surviving Your Performance Review

24 TIPS TO HELP YOU MANAGE YOUR CAREER

The Gen-Yers Guide to …

If you’ve picked up this so-called sur-vival guide, then congratulations! You’ve decided to be your own captain on the sometimes-turbulent seas of the modern workplace. You’ve moved to master your own performance review destiny.

My friend, you are already ahead of the game just by picking up this eBook. Now, we’re going to help you ace your interview and better manage your career so you can get the pay raises—and the promotions—you deserve.

Before we dive into the 23 tips we prom-ised, let’s take a quick look at how goals play into your career success. See, long before you step into your manager’s

office for the dreaded performance ap-praisal, goals were playing a role in the outcome.

If you decided to set, track and record goal wins—and if you indeed effectively performed against those goals—you can walk into the review with legit confi-dence. If you’ve never taken the time to set, track and record goal wins, don’t hang your head. It’s never too late to start. Start now!

This eBook isn’t all about goals. No, not by a long shot. But you’ll notice that goals are a running theme—and for good reason. Modern Corporate America is all about results. The Results-Only

Workplace Environment (ROWE) era is upon us. By getting up to speed on cutting-edge workplace practices now, you can lead the sea change in your organization. And your coworkers (and even your managers) will thank you.

As you move through this guide, it’s important that you take some time to reflect at each step along the way. Re-ally think about your answers to the questions within, and be ready to make changes that will help you ace your performance appraisal and advance your career.

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever wondered how the dreaded performance review got started? Two words—Industrial Revolution.

Yes, you can trace the makings of modern-day performance appraisals all the way back to the 1700s when Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism, proposed that work could be made more efficient by breaking it up into simple tasks through specialization.

But it was Frederick Taylor, the Father of Scientific Management, who developed the concept of work design, work measurement and production control that transformed industry in the 20th

century. That led to the birth of the Hu-man Relations Movement. Management styles evolved. The government got into the incentives game. And by the 1970s performance management fever spread like wildfire.

Much has changed since the 1970s,

though. Modern workers are mobile, virtual, social, and they collaborate from anywhere and everywhere in real time. The quest for work-life balance is still alive, but social networking platforms and mobile technologies have blurred the lines between work and life.

Indeed, a new generation has emerged. That new generation is you. And since performance appraisals are still an unfortunate reality—at least for the time being—WorkSimple is going to help you ace yours. So without further ado, read on for 23 tips that will help you maximize your performance review.

A Brief History of Performance Reviews

Before the Review

Before you sit down with your boss, be sure you really under-stand your corporate culture. Do words like practical, punchy, progressive, and modern apply? Or do terms like bureaucratic, old-fashioned and conservative do the trick? Is your company top-down? Bottom-up? Social? Mobile?

What’s the communication flow like? Is there an open-door policy? Do informal meetings arise at the water cooler? Is each cubicle an island unto itself? How do your coworkers like to communicate? E-mail? Instant Messaging? Inter-office paper memos?

Don’t just look at the corpora-tion and its workers—look within yourself. Do you understand the company goals? Are the company values clear in your mind? Have you set goals for your career? Do you work on your job-related goals alone or are you more collaborative? Are you a results-driven contributor who supports the goals of other teams? You may need to shift your own attitudes to drive your career ahead.

What are your core values? Find your values and your voice. Once you discover them, build on them.

Part of your success in any company is understanding the corporate culture and your coworker’s styles. But the larger part of your success is the measurable results you drive. Be prepared to demonstrate those results in your performance review.

Corporate culture is more than a buzzword. Your corporate culture is the foundation on which you will build this stage of your career. Understanding your corporate culture will help you play by the rules of the game—or perhaps be the catalyst to change them. Here are four tips for taking the pulse of your corporate culture:

Check the Corporate Pulse

TIP #3THE INWARD CHECK

TIP #4TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

TIP #2THE COMMUNICATION CHECK

TIP #1THE CULTURE CHECK

How do you manage goals? What do you use to track progress toward your goals? Google Docs? A clipboard and a legal pad? Some other system? How often do you measure your progress toward goals? The more systematically—and the more frequently—you monitor progress toward any given goal, the better your chances of reaching that goal

In any performance review in-terview, your WorkStory—your professional reputation that starts building from your first day on the job—can do the talking for you. Before you sit down with your boss, gather e-mail, documents, and presentations you’ve worked on. Focus on the top five projects that highlight your contributions

and results. Your WorkStory helps you—and your manager—see your career strengths almost at a glance. This is a strong tool in your career development.

How does what you do on a daily basis impact your team? How does it impact other teams? What about the company? In other words, what is your ripple effect on your company, its customers and even its customers’ customers? When you can see the big picture, you can better communicate your value to the organization.

Armed with this information, you are ready to show your manager in no uncertain terms why you are so valuable to the company—and why you should get a raise, promotion, or whatever else will incentivize you to further maximize your performance.

Before you sit through your performance appraisal, you’d better know where you stand. Audit your work so you can sit behind your manager’s closed door with confidence, armed with demonstrable results that show-case you as a rising star in the organization. Here are three tips to help you do just that:

The Work Audit

TIP #7YOUR RIPPLE EFFECT

TIP #6SAVE YOUR WORKSTORY

TIP #5MAP YOUR ROUTINE

Managers love young employees with tall goals. So be ready to discuss three to six active goals on the spot. These can be a blend of shorter-, short- and long-term goals. Shorter-term goals usually take less than 30 days to achieve and may be linked to some larger company or team goals, e.g. devel-oping a new corporate brochure.

Short-term goals should take 45 days or less to accomplish, e.g. attending a continuing education class to learn a new skill. Long-term goals could take several months or longer to accomplish, e.g. meeting sales projections on a new product. Be ready to rattle off your active goals during your performance review.

Questioning your goals and tactics is a constructive process, especially considering you might have to stick up for your goals during your perfor-mance review. Knowing what questions to expect will help, and asking a few questions of yourself can prepare you.

Here are three simple questions to ask yourself about each goal you set: (1) How does this goal impact my company? (2) How does this goal impact my team and other departments? and (3) How does this goal impact me personally and professionally? Take the time to develop solid answers.

Demonstrating your ability to execute on corporate goals—as well as set intermediate goals toward those grander objectives—can set you apart from the pack. Here are four tips to help you shine in your performance review:

Be a Goals–Oriented Worker

TIP #9ARE YOUR GOALS REALLY ENOUGH?

TIP #8RATTLE OFF YOUR ACTIVE GOALS

Record how you contribute to your coworkers’ goals as well as to team, department and larger corporate goals. Showing ways in which you support the goals of others is not only important in acing your performance appraisal, it also goes a long way toward

building team morale. Record-ing your contributions as a team player helps you see your impact on the team—and share it with your manager.

Always log your fire drills, AKA “interrupt goals.” Interrupt goals are fires that you raced to put out because your manager’s priorities suddenly shifted—and they distract you from making progress toward your daily goals. So log every

fire drill and record how these necessary distractions impacted your work. Calculate your hours on fire drill projects and the impact it has on the organi-zation. If you can’t prove out an overall ROI, add a metric to as many details as you can.

The key to being a goals-oriented worker is reflecting, recording and communicating—and it’s a continual process. Always be ready to share and demonstrate progress toward your goals. It’s the stuff promotions are made of.

Be a Goals–Oriented Worker

TIP #11LOG YOUR FIRE DRILLS

TIP #10OWN YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS

Expanding your support and feed-back beyond your department will help you connect the corporate dots. Wait five to nine business days after you make a deliverable, and then ask for feedback. That feedback helps you see how your goals are linked to team, depart-ment and company goals. When you see the bigger picture, you can see where your contributions are making the biggest impact.

Recognize—and document—the efforts of your coworkers. Broadcast your kudos as far and wide as possible. Help everyone understand that recognition is important. By doing so, you’ll win friends and influence people. At the end of every week ask yourself: “Whom did I give feedback to?” and “When is the last time I gave a virtual high five?”

One of the keys to getting an advantageous performance review is to highlight collaboration and integration. The more you give feedback, the higher the chances that you will receive it as well. So start collaborating and integrating. You reap what you sow.

Connect with coworkers and provide status updates and kudos through social networks, or social platforms—or even e-mail. Take the perspective that the team’s success is your success, and be one who helps breed a corporate culture of recognition.

Results. It’s ultimately what your boss is looking for from you—and what your boss’ boss is looking for from him. If you can walk into the performance review with a results-driven focus, you are sure to impress. Feedback is always helpful toward that goal. Here are three tips for fostering a feedback focus:

A Feedback Focus

TIP #14COLLABORATE & CELEBRATE

TIP #13EVERYONE LOVES HIGH FIVES

TIP #12CONNECT THE DOTS

During the Review

If you are well-prepared for your performance appraisal, you can help guide the conversation. Have your WorkStory ready, along with your current goals, and be ready to discuss it so your manager can get to know you—and your work results—better.

It’s not easy to sit back and listen—but it’s important in order to stay in sync with your manager. You really do need to hear his feedback. Let the conversation ebb and flow. Ask questions about the feedback, such as, “How can I improve in this area?” or “What teams do you think are most impacted by my work?”

You can agree to disagree, but be careful not to get defensive. If you don’t agree with the feed-back your manager is offering, be sure to show him rather than tell him why you don’t agree. Show documentation that bol-sters your argument, if you have it. And if you don’t, then accept the feedback and ask how you can improve. A good attitude will take you a long way.

Remember, gathering coworker feedback can also be helpful. You can share this information in your performance review. Always ask for deeper level feedback if your manager provides surface level comments. And listen, listen, listen.

The dreaded performance review can be worse for some than going to the dentist. After all, if you brush and floss every day then you know what to expect from the dentist. If you walk into your performance review without a clear picture of how you contributed to the company’s goals, you may be justifiably nervous. Consider these three dos and don’ts for your performance review:

Discussion Dos and Don’ts

TIP #17DON’T GET DEFENSIVE

TIP #16STAY IN SYNC

TIP #15GUIDE THE CONVERSATION

After the Review

Commit to goals with the right timing. That means accurately forecasting goal timelines, under-promising and over-delivering on projects, and keeping a close eye on your workload. Remember, the more achieved goals you showcase in your WorkStory, the less your manager will focus on competencies.

Trash goals that are no longer relevant, or at least move them to a “draft” folder so they don’t drain your focus from more immediate, results-only goals that impact the organization now. You can always revisit these goals in the future when they may even be more rel-evant. You could just be ahead of your time!

Get into the habit of reporting on your goals weekly using a tool like WorkSimple’s Social Goals. Publish your goals to your manager, coworkers and supporters to breed open communication and collabora-tion. Social Goals is not just for HR—this system is built for you.

Remember, you get hired based on your work portfolio but you are ultimately measured based on your goal performance.

Goals should always be top of mind, even when you have to rethink your goals. By exercising strategic timing and tossing out goals that aren’t mission-critical, you’ll drive stronger results that will get you noticed.

Once you’ve survived your performance review, start preparing for the next one now. Hopefully, you received valuable feedback that will offer you insights into how you should approach goals going forward. But even if you didn’t, now is the time to reassess your goals.

Rethink Your Goals

TIP #20WEEKLY REPORTING

TIP #19TOSS OUT IRRELEVANT GOALS

TIP #18GOAL CONTROL

Continue to build your WorkStory by showcasing your success in your cube, on social networks, and in your social goal platform every week. Tracking your accomplish-ments now will pay dividends in the future.

Watch your workload. As new projects come up, always look back to your goals so you can stay focused on the impact your daily work is having on those goals—or how the fire drills are distracting you from them. Document, document, docu-ment. Work Simple’s Social Goals makes this as simple as posting to your favorite social network.

Rather than quarterly or annual reviews, try to get feedback from your manager monthly. This is part of making an effort to understand what is going on with your coworkers and managers. And this sort of self-management positions you as a leader who’s interesting in keeping the big picture in mind.

Help other coworkers under-stand your recipe for a successful performance review. By doing so, you will play a key role in the Performance Management Revolution.

A closing thought: Always align goals with your passion. If you are passionate about your goals, it’s more likely you’ll meet them—and even exceed them.

Part of success in the world of work is taking on a team mindset. Let your team know what you are working on, and take an interest in what they are working on. Help yourself succeed by helping your team succeed. Your manager will notice.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

TIP #23MIND THE GAP

TIP #22DECONGEST YOUR PLANS

TIP #24PAY IT FORWARD

TIP #21ADVERTISE YOUR GOALS

How to Get StartedVisit us to sign up for a the FREE Forever version of WorkSimple’s Social Goals with full access to all core features at getworksimple.com. Contact WorkSimple to get started at (415) 671-4714 or email [email protected].

About WorkSimpleWorkSimple’s Social Goals is a better way to share goals, work together, get and give feedback, and make everyone on the team shine. Individuals, small teams and large, global organizations alike use WorkSimple to put an end to bad performance reviews. WorkSimple is deployed in minutes, and is as easy to use as your favorite social network, so you and your coworkers can quickly start sharing goals, feedback, and recognition.

Learn more at getworksimple.com.

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