Why Performance Reviews Matter
At Volaris, people are at the core of everything we do - whether it’s developing new products in order to better meet customer needs, or ensuring that we have the right people in the right jobs. Because of our people mindset, every year senior management spends a significant amount of time conducting performance reviews. While most people see talent reviews as a pain, we see it as an opportunity. Below are our top reasons as to why performance reviews matter.
Find New Leaders
As mentioned in one of our previous posts, Finding the Leaders of Tomorrow, identifying and developing our future leaders is imperative to us. Because we spend the time going through each employee’s performance throughout the year and charting their progress, we are able to spot those with potential and then figure out how to best set them up for success.
Cultural Fit
When we conduct talent reviews, we look at two dimensions: performance and cultural fit. Though it’s important to have people who do their job well, you also need people who understand and agree with the company’s core values and beliefs. We want employees who are excited to work for us and are proud of what they do - not those who think it’s just another job to pay the bills.
Evaluate the Micro and the Macro
Talent management is the intersection of people and strategy. Therefore performance reviews allow management to view a person’s performance (the micro), how the company is performing as a whole (the macro) and how the two are interconnected. Are people carrying out the strategies they are supposed to? Are things running as efficiently as possible? Are there better ways our employees could be executing our strategies? These are the some of the questions talent reviews can answer.
Communicate Goals
In a company the size of ours, it can be difficult at times to communicate company goals to all of our business units. During performance reviews we combat this challenge by breaking our goals down so it is applicable to each layer of the organization, and employees know specifically how their work contributes to those goals.
Encourage and Motivate
As managers, sometimes we don’t encourage and praise our employees as often as we should. During an employee’s performance review is the perfect time to formally acknowledge their hard work and congratulate them on their successes throughout the year.
Modify Roles
Talent management is about strategic planning and ensuring that the right people are performing the right jobs. By conducting performance reviews, we are able to assess whether a person is in the right role, if their role should be modified in any way, or if they should be moved to a new position entirely in order to benefit them and the company.
Assess our Business Units
This connects to the previous point. Not only do we assess individual performance with talent reviews, but it gives us a chance to see the cultural dynamics of our business units. Revenue, growth, profitability – numbers are only one side of the story. It is important to determine if each team is working well together and collaboration is present. We want to make sure that our employees are functioning as a cohesive unit.
Prevent Problems before They Surface
In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any problems within an organization and everything would run smoothly all the time. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. When we sit down for a performance review, employees can be truthful about any pain points. We can also see any potential problems in a business unit or other parts of our organization, and take the appropriate actions to prevent them.
Your Turn
Though performance reviews are time consuming, they really help us to grow our talent and aid in planning for the year ahead. How does your company approach performance reviews? Do you find them useful, or just feel like you are going through the motions? Let us know in the comments below or reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.