Goodbye Annual Reviews, Hello Regular Check-ins

Annual reviews aim to improve performance and productivity with clear guidance and constructive feedback. Ultimately, the goal is to create a better workplace and a better business. Despite these best intentions, unfortunately, those are rarely the results. Instead, most annual reviews are rushed, fraught with anxiety—for both managers and employees—and completed more for formality than purpose. 

Not only do most of these reviews not achieve their intended goals, but often they’re also detrimental, adding unnecessary stress to the workplace environment. The worry over how a manager perceives your work can be intense. Worse still, sometimes reviews are handled top-down style, where upper management teams review the performance of workers they don’t even directly manage. This can greatly affect morale, especially when performance issues are raised. And, as you probably already know, low morale does not do good things for performance and productivity. 

Still, it’s critically important to improve performance and productivity. These are tenets of a healthy business. So, how do modern companies achieve these goals without the hassle and tension of annual reviews? Keep the feedback—ditch the timeline. 

Unlocking Engagement with Continuous Feedback 

Simply put, information is power. And continuous feedback gives you the power to stay ahead of the curve. Unlike the traditional annual review model, where feedback is mandated and completed as an annual chore instead of a tool for performance, continuous feedback gives you an opportunity to check in regularly with your teams, working on skills and development as you go and fine-tuning performance in real-time. Best of all, this kind of ongoing feedback leads to better engagement, which is at the heart of improving business operations. And while we admittedly do have a dog in the fight, so-to-speak, it’s not just our opinions. 

Gallup has been tracking and measuring data on worker engagement for more than 10 years. In its 10th meta-analysis, Gallup researchers analyzed 456 research studies across 276 organizations in 54 industries and 96 countries, looking at engagement data for some 2.7 million employees. In other words: they have it on good authority! Gallup’s latest meta-analysis shows that businesses in the top quartile—those with the highest levels of employee engagement— enjoy an average of 23% more profitability and 18% higher productivity than their bottom-quartile counterparts. 

That’s a big difference! And WorkHound can help make it a reality with a smart platform for collecting ongoing anonymous feedback. Keep workers engaged and get the information you need to support your team. When workers are engaged, they are more productive and less likely to look for another job. 

It’s time to revolutionize performance reviews in the workplace. The outdated, “one size fits all” approach doesn’t cut it anymore. In fact, it’s tough to make the case it ever did. Research shows that businesses with an engaged workforce have consistently higher profits, lower turnover, improved productivity and more compared to those with lower engagement.  

Get your teams engaged, and get the feedback you need to do away with annual reviews and still get the results you’re looking for. Book a demo to see WorkHound in action.