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Having been on both sides of the tableas employee and managerI can confidently say that no one looks forward to annual performance reviews. As an employee, you might find yourself bracing for critiques and rehearsing defenses. Maybe youre asked to rate your own performance and feel unsure whether to play it humble or confident. And thats before you even start combing through an entire years worth of highs and lows. Employers are likewise tasked with the time-consuming exercise of digging through months of work for each employee. But the real issue isnt just that annual reviews are stressfulit’s that theyre often ineffective. They can leave employees feeling frustrated and disengaged. Meanwhile, organizations continue to waste time on systems that do little to meaningfully improve performance or support career growth. Some even rank employees, pitting them against each other in a race that completely undermines the spirit of collaboration. I know that kind of atmosphere would not work for my company. Todays employees want something different: timely, ongoing feedback that helps them improve in the moment. Its not just a more psychologically gentler approachit also delivers results. In fact, the percentage of U.S. companies using annual reviews dropped from 82% in 2016 to just 49% in 2023, according to the Society for Human Resource Management. Its no doubt due to the benefits of real-time feedback. Heres a closer look at some of those advantages. Real-time feedback accelerates improvement Imagine youre a line cook in a restaurant. Youve been preparing a dish from the spring/summer menu the same way for months. Then, in September, your sous chef informs you that youve been leaving out a key ingredient all along. The feedback comes too late to matteryoure already moving on to the fall menu. Delayed feedback, in short, is unhelpful. Annual reviews are too infrequent for the cycle of work today in most enterprises, says James N. Baron, a professor at Yale School of Management. Goals negotiated at the beginning of the year have often become obsolete and irrelevant by the end-of-year review. Thats why more and more organizations are shifting away from annual reviews. Timely feedback allows employees to adjust quickly. Baron advocates for real-time coaching, in which managers work directly alongside their team members. When leaders stay close to the work, their feedback is immediate and actionable. But when theyre removed from day-to-day operationswhen theyre too far from the trenchesthey cant possibly understand where employees need to improve. At AstraZeneca, managers adopted a more hands-on coaching approach. Four years later, the company saw a 12% increase in core coaching capabilities and a 70% boost in managers confidence in leading meaningful coaching conversations. Ongoing feedback makes the coaching process more effective and manageable for managers as well. Frequent feedback boosts motivation and morale As my companys workforce increasingly includes millennial and Gen Z employees, Ive seen a steady rise in the desire for continual feedback. While younger workers are sometimes unfairly labeled as overly sensitive, in my experience, they welcome constructive criticism, especially when it helps them grow and move closer to their career goals. Companies that want to attract and retain top talent are taking note. Regular, informal check-ins offer another advantage: They turn feedback into a dialogue rather than a one-sided annual monologue. This helps employers better understand their employees career goals and collaborate on aligning those goals with the companys broader objectives. These conversations shift from sources of dread to wellsprings of motivation. Simply put, ongoing feedback helps keep people on track, ideally in a direction that serves both their personal development and the companys success. More feedback, less fear: Shifting the tone of evaluation In the annual review process, theres often a performative element in which leaders feel compelled to balance praise with critique, regardless of whats warranted by the actual employees performance. Whether its delivered as a compliment sandwich or a straight-up list of pros and cons, the experience can leave employees feeling dissatisfied and deflated. The mere word feedback from a manager can trigger an employees threat response, flooding the brain with adrenaline and making it harder to process and act on whats being said. In contrast, when feedback is given regularly, it tends to be received more positively. Employees view it as less threatening and more helpful. Over time, frequent reinforcement and recognition lead to greater engagement and performance. As CEO of my company for nearly two decades, I can attest: It feels good to give positive feedback. Over time, it creates a virtuous cycle: You start looking for moments to commend employee performance just as much as you look for ways to help them improve.
Category:
E-Commerce
Ive spent over two decades on stages around the world as a charity auctioneer. Even in the earliest years of my career, my job exposed me to titans of industry and people at the highest levels of business. But even as I became more experienced in my career, I always had the same thought: What am I doing here? Everyone here knows so much more than I do. Any comments or thoughts I planned to share remained exactly thatthoughtsbecause when I opened my mouth, I worried everyone would remember I wasnt supposed to be at the table in the first place. What started as a feeling that stopped me from speaking followed me in my career. That feeling stopped me from putting my hand up for a promotion, a raise, or for anything at all. It made me feel like I wasnt supposed to be sitting in the boardroomor anywhere near the building, for that matter. Talk to any woman who has been in the working world or in a leadership position in the past two decades, and she can tell you all about imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is a feeling that stops many of us, particularly women, in our tracks. It keeps many of us from getting into the room where we would have the chance to fail. As you ascend the corporate ladder, no matter how deserving you are of a new title, a raise, or a new position, you may never truly believe you deserve any of it. When you look around a room of your peers, theres a little voice inside telling you that youre lucky to be in that room. Sound familiar? Its time to surmount the syndrome. Start with this simple three-step process so you can focus on the thing that matters most: you. 1. STOP THE SPIRAL Tell me if this sounds familiar. Youre having a conversation with someone in your lifea friend, someone senior in your office, or someone whose opinion you care deeply about. They mention they are so glad that they get to see you now that your children are getting older and you can be in the office more. The comment stops you cold. Now youre spiraling, your mind filling in a narrative. Ive been out of the game for years. Everyone here thinks I dont work hard enough, that Im not here enough, that I dont do a good job. I need to show them I do care. Ill start working on the weekends, do extra work . . . On and on you go with a spiral of self-doubt and insecurity about everything that you have ever felt about your job performance. What did this person actually say? Its great to see you in the office more now that your children are getting older. Period. Your answer? Thanks! End scene. 2. CONTROL THE NARRATIVE Believe in yourself enough to believe that other people are thinking the best of you, not the worst. To really slam that imposter syndrome, rewrite your own story. Lets go back and rewrite that scene, shall we? What did that person say? Its great to see you in the office more now that your children are getting older. Heres what I want you to hear: You are such a valuable member of this team, its really great to have your positive energy in this office. You must be an incredible multitasker to be raising kids at home and crushing it at work, too. What a role model for the people around you. We are lucky to have you. End scene. Cue applause. 3. ACCEPT THERE ARE NO GOLD STARS IN LIFE Never forget there are no gold stars given out when you are an adult. No one gives you a gold star for showing up to work, just like no one gives you a gold star for making your bed when you get up in the morning. You are responsible for everything that happens in your life and your response to it. Once you stop looking for affirmation from those around you and seek it from yourself, you can realize you have had the power all along.
Category:
E-Commerce
I still wake up at 7:15 a.m. Not because I have a meeting. Or a commute. Or a list of deliverables thats longer than a CVS receipt. Im up early because something about lying in bed while my corporate counterparts clock in makes me feel like Im behind, even if theres no race Im actively running. The day kicks off with the usual: matcha, oatmeal, a spin on the Peloton, and a shower. But then? Stillness. No Slack pings. No check-ins. No one asking for a quick sync to circle back so we can get our ducks in a row. Just me, refreshing LinkedIn, wondering if today is the day a recruiter cannonballs into my DMs like Ron Burgundy. I launched this column five years ago as a mid-level marketing manager in Seattlecorporates middle child, navigating microaggressions, vague feedback, and vibes that often felt . . . off. I wrote about working through a pandemic, watching my well-meaning white colleagues bumble through a so-called racial reckoning, and climbing org chart rungs while staying woke to the wonkiness of upper management. Back then, I wrote as The Only Black Guy in the Office. Now? Im still him, but theres no office at allunless you count the one in my spare bedroom. For the first time in a long time, Im unemployed. There, I said it. I used to pray for times like this, imagining being unshackled from the chains of recurring standups, performance reviews, and a 27-tab document named Final_FINAL_V3_(1). Id see myself rewatching The Boondocks episodes on a random Tuesday afternoon, hitting up local museums during off-peak hours, day drinking with a pinky pointed toward the clouds. But since those first couple of weeks post-layoff, the fun in funemployment has hopped on a paper plane and gone MIA. Im over the midday mimosas and matinees, especially now that Im fresh out of severance dollars to spend and Severance episodes to binge. My savings and sense of purpose are each trending downward, dawg, without a namaste in sight. Theres an odd grief that hits the moment your work account passwords go inactive. Its the coldest closure, like an ex changing the locks while youre still packing your things. Except here, your belongings are stored in a shared Google Drive and a Slack archive youll never access again. I once thought I couldnt feel any more like an outsider. I was wrong. But that wasnt the only wake-up call. Things done changed for this era of job hunters. Im learning the futility of cold applying, the scams targeting desperate job seekers, the absurdity of stuffing resumes with keywords to appease the bots. Even when I make it past the algorithm bouncers and land in front of an actual human, I wonder if the HBCU degree I worked so hard for is a reveal that invites bias before Ive said a word. The hardest part of this all? Its not my obsessive clocking of banking apps and job boards, nor the dystopian friend-or-foe role of artificial intelligence in the application process. Its the identity shift with which Ive only recently come to terms. When youve spent your entire career outworking self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism, being unemployed feels like failure, even when its not. Doesnt matter if its due to a layoff, a budget cut, or a strategic realignment. For years, my job was more than a source of income and fodder for my therapist. It was where I could be a rockstar in one conference room and a firefighter in the next. A place I could lift up others who looked like me and, when necessary, check those who didnt. If Im keeping it a bean, it was validation. Now, with no decks to compile or KPIs to hit, Ive had to sit in that stillness. Ive had to create the structure in my days that I once dreaded. Ive had to convince myself that the youre too talented to be in the market for long! sentiments shared by friends and peers are sincere. This column has always been a pressure release valvea space to process what it means to be Black and corporate and exhausted. I didnt realize how much Id need that outlet again. Maybe even more now than before. So Im brushing off the cobwebs and writing again. To make sense of this moment. To connect with folks who are navigating the same in-between. And to remind myself, and maybe you too, that being without a job doesnt mean being without value. The matchas iced, but the tea is still hot. Sip slow.
Category:
E-Commerce
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