In a performance appraisal, the manager and the employee talk together about the job and how the work is going. Performance appraisals can be a tiresome routine. A nice chat to start with, same procedure the next year, and in your job nothing changes.

Occupational health psychologist Heli Hannonen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health says that advance preparation helps to bring the best out of a performance appraisal.

“However, if there’s something you want to get off your chest it’s not worth waiting half a year or a year to go and speak to your boss. After all, the company’s results are worked out every quarter.”

Hannonen has trained managers in conducting performance appraisals. A general concern among managers is how to get employees to tell what they are thinking.

“Managers aren’t mind readers. They won’t know unless you tell them!”

In Hannonen’s opinion, employees should think out in advance what things they definitely want to say regardless of the sort of form the company uses in its performance appraisals.

“If the company’s form is not that good, you can concentrate on the space for comments at the end.”

“Then you won’t be thinking: damn, there was something else I forgot to mention”.

Before your performance appraisal, it’s a good idea to think about what things you would like to change at work, what you are happy with and any areas where you would like to improve. It’s good if employees are able to suggest solutions to problems, if at all possible. For example, you could find out in advance what courses you want to go on if you need to improve your skillset.

”Otherwise the problem might remain unresolved or your manager might solve it their own way."

              The objective is that I listen to the other person and I am listened to myself.

Performance appraisals are not the place for blunt declarations – the objective is to have a genuine interaction between the two sides. It’s not about putting on a show or blurting out ready-made statements from a piece of paper.

“The objective is that I listen to the other person and I am listened to myself”, Hannonen says.

It has proved to be surprisingly difficult to have genuine interaction in performance appraisals; it doesn’t happen just like that.

“That’s why our advice is that when you’re having a performance appraisal switch your phone off and put on the red light over the door.”

You might well ask how a performance appraisal is different from other discussions between bosses and their workers.

”A performance appraisal is a more precisely defined set-up than a talk over coffee or a managerial discussion”.

According to Hannonen, a performance appraisal is the place to make specific agreements which are followed up later.

According Heli Hannonen a performance appraisal is all about being able to listen to the other party. Photo: Antti J Leinonen

There’s one thing you shouldn’t do in a performance appraisal. Bosses and employees shouldn’t store up lists of what’s gone wrong over months and then unload them on each other.

”Feedback needs to be spontaneous”, Hannonen says.

In a performance appraisal you can think about how to move forward based on feedback given earlier. Hannonen says that nowadays critical feedback is called constructive feedback, and being on the receiving end takes practice too.

“We very easily react to feedback by thinking “you’re not that great yourself either.”

According to Hannonen, it is very common in Finland for companies to have performance appraisals. They are not required by law. Companies vary in their
approach, however.

“In some organisations there are group-type discussions on common topics which are supplemented with a brief personal discussion.”