Use These 4 Tips as You Prepare for Year-End Reviews

Performance reviews should be a positive moment in an otherwise hectic year for employees. But often, it feels like they are either a chore or a stressful event. Think about year-end reviews as a time to highlight your successes, learn from feedback, and hear from your supervisor about what impact you are having on the business. In order to get the most out of your year-end reviews, here are four tips to take you to the next level.

  1. Focus on Your Accomplishments

Year-end reviews are your chance to sing your own praises. Think back on what really felt like a win for you over the past year. It’s possible your manager doesn’t see the value of those accomplishments or may have forgotten how important they were as time went by. To help you resurface your wins, keep a file of emails citing you for a job well-done. Use examples like customer testimonials, presentations or other work you produced that you felt made a difference for the team or the company. This provides tangible evidence of your claims and is a good reminder so you don’t forget anything. It’s important to highlight the best of what you did, because without that reminder a fair number of those accomplishments may go unnoticed or unrecognized.

  1. Document Your Workload

Big wins are important, but so too are those day-to-day responsibilities you have consistently delivered on over the course of the year. Again, you can’t always assume your manager knows everything you’re doing day by day. With restructuring and roles getting combined, you might have taken on much more than your manager remembers. Your annual review is the perfect time to confirm with your manager how much responsibility you have, and potentially reevaluate your role and compensation to reflect those responsibilities.

  1. Identify Areas of Growth

Many managers actually have a tough time giving negative feedback, so if your review has nothing critical, do not assume it’s because everything is just fine. Even if your job is not in jeopardy in any way, you still want to find out what you could be doing better for your own professional and personal development. To this end, talk about specific skills and qualities you think you should work on. Ask for input from your manager in order to better understand their expectations of you and to allow them to provide opportunities for you to improve. Where possible, ask for specific examples of where you fell short or a negative quality surfaced, so you you’re clear on exactly what you need to work on.

  1. Discuss next steps

Having a discussion about company strategy and what you should be working on is a great transition into discussing your overall career plans. While you don’t want to seem like you’re looking to replace your manager, you also want to show you’re invested in the company long term. Soliciting your manager’s help in planning the next steps for your career is a great way to show you’re committed, while also getting your manager’s input on what’s next for you and what you need to do to get there.

Ready to grow your career?

For more ideas around how to grow your career in 2019, connect with the career experts at Ag 1 Source today.