I am a firm believer in a mid-year performance review, whether or not your company mandates it. The COVID-19 pandemic positively demands it to ensure you and your boss are aligned on what’s expected of you—and how those expectations may have changed since the beginning of the year when you wrote your 2020 goals and objectives. Nearly everything in our lives has been upended during these unprecedented times, which very well may include expectations for your performance at work. The purpose of this post is to ensure you are not surprised by your boss’s current thinking regarding your performance in terms of what you contribute and how.
With only five months remaining in the year to make an impact, it is more important than ever to arrange a meeting with your boss to review your goals and objectives, and the extent to which they remain directly tied to the priorities of both your organization and your boss. If there have been shifts in emphasis and priority, revise your goals and objectives to reflect those shifts. If there have been changes in the expectations of the quality or quantity of your deliverables, make sure your goals and objectives reflect those shifts.
Schedule a meeting with your boss as soon as possible to gain a sense of how well your boss thinks you are executing your current Performance Plan. What’s working well? Not so well? What changes to your goals and objectives have you made—or should you make—to adapt to the demands of doing business during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you and your boss aligned on those changes and, therefore, what constitutes outstanding performance given the current environment? Do the two of you agree on expectations of WHAT you do and HOW you do it given the rapidly changing priorities many organizations currently experience?
Don’t be afraid to ask your boss if your performance is on track and how he or she would rate it at this point. Remain calm even if your boss is not as positive as you would like. The very point of having a mid-year performance review is that it gives you 4 to 5 months to course-correct, if necessary, to upgrade your performance and deliver outstanding results.
After the meeting, revise your Performance Plan, including your goals and objectives, and send it to your boss as a recap for his or her files. And then, use the rest of the year to deliver results that meet or exceed your boss’ description of outstanding performance.
