As a lab manager, your primary role is to maintain the organization functioning and improving, which includes assisting people in succeeding and growing in their positions.
Getting into specifics while providing motivating and corrective feedback might be difficult, but these discussions are genuinely the most helpful and, hence, most valuable to both you and your staff. These sorts of feedback provide employees with a clear image of what they need to do to maintain or improve their performance, and the comments will thus have a positive impact on their self-esteem rather than a negative impact.
Giving constructive comments can be intimidating for anyone. Job-related feedback, unless it is unqualified praise, has the potential to polarise employees. Some will be grateful for the advice, and may even seek it out on their own; others may be less pleased, and may even lose confidence in their role, upon hearing it.
A formal annual review has long been regarded as the gold standard for providing an appraisal of how an employee has handled their responsibilities and where they might improve. Concerns have been expressed, however, concerning the effectiveness of such assessments, their timing, and their ability to create further difficulties for an employee, particularly if they are sensitive to criticism.
Yes, reviews are quite important. They are not a flawless system by any means, but they do provide certain important benefits that should not be overlooked. Employees, first and foremost, want to know how they’re performing and how they might improve. Regular performance assessments allow you and your employees to debate promotion policies and compensation.
ROLLING REVIEWS VS. ANNUAL REVIEWS
Is it really a good idea to wait a year for a review? After all, allowing bad habits or erroneous practises to persist for a year before speaking up could be harmful to your lab – not to mention, the longer you wait to speak up, the more difficult it may be for that individual to change their behaviour.
Whether you decide to abandon the yearly review in favour of more frequent dialogues, you’ll need to find a schedule and structure that works best for your staff and the operations of your lab.
Some businesses are using a two-step review process to avoid surprises during the formal meeting. This entails the usage of software that allows you and your employee to rate each other’s performance based on criteria you establish. This method also allows employees to submit feedback and document any successes they have had during the review period.
