Performance Reviews: When and How to Use Them

Managing Up

This week, Nick, Travis, and Brandon respond to a listener's question about when and how to successfully use performance reviews. Nick shares the idea of using "pattern matching" as a basis for evaluating performance. They discuss whether to tie performance to raises, and how to gather and provide feedback outside the performance review process.

Notes:

• Listener question:
• I just had a fairly junior engineer ask in our 1:1 for something like a performance review. This is not something I - or my company - have done before. How do I provide good feedback for eager juniors and jaded seniors? How do I set clear expectations and give small feedback regularly in 1:1s so there are no surprises? How do I keep my experience/perspective from having too much influence? Is it a bad idea to tie raises to just one evaluation? Is there a way to give periodic bigger-picture evaluation and advice to those who want it without doing formal reviews? Thanks!