8 Tips on How to Impress Your Boss on Performance Review

Good presentation on a performance review is vital for your career advancement, getting realistic feedback from the manager, and increasing collaboration with your colleagues backed by increased authority and respect.

According to UC Berkeley’s Guide to Managing Human Resources, “Performance Management is an ongoing process of communication between a supervisor and an employee that occurs throughout the year, in support of accomplishing the strategic objectives of the organization.” It “includes clarifying expectations, setting objectives, identifying goals, providing feedback, and reviewing results.”

Before managers sit down for the Performance Appraisal process, they will ideally have already been participating in ongoing communication with their employees.

Over 90% of American businesses have Performance Reviews. Performance appraisals follow several goals:

1. Reflection. Zoom out of day-to-day work to look at the big picture of your work and performance.
2. Compensation. A set time to evaluate for and provide raises helps manage budgets and expectations.
3. Advancement. Employees want a growth path at your company. Performance appraisals help identify when people are ready for a new role.
4. Culling. Performance appraisals help identify underperformers who need to be turned around or let go for the sake of the rest of the team.

If you are prepared to make the most of this sit-down, it’ll be a painless process and might even be eye-opening and super insightful.

At a minimum, you should bring a list of accomplishments and a catalog of questions. Think of how you can self-promote, but be prepared to respond to your manager’s feedback.

What else can you do to improve your presentation during performance evaluation?

1. Present small projects by their numbers and big projects by their business value. Use countable measures and colleagues’ feedback to back the importance of your work.
2. Highlight your strong ties with other teams & departments. Show that you are a colleague they want to work with. 
3. Take responsibility for your mistakes and ownership of your achievements. Demonstrate it by showing the opportunities you used and the problems you faced. Make your decision-making process more transparent.
4. Use storytelling tools & techniques to highlight things you are proud of. Make your story trustworthy by showing what you’ve struggled with. The most popular are Starfish Retrospective Model and SMART goals.
5. Choose appropriate means of visualization for every situation be it PowerPoint slides, a table, or a speech. Each of them has its pros and cons.
6. Align own achievements with the organizations and team’s goals. The more obvious this connection is the more benefits you’ll exert. You can also examine your Performance against Job Requirements.
7. Present the bigger picture and mention your developments compared to the previous periods.If you had high performance in the past, highlight your long history of successes. Mention how you’ve developed your skills and how you can provide more value compared to the previous review.
8. Make the most of your 1-on-1s. One of the problems of Performance Reviews is remembering all the good things you’ve done during the year. Most probably, you have already discussed them on one-on-one meetings. If you take notes, you’ll have all the information you need to prepare for Review. 

When done well, the performance evaluation sets the direction for the whole next period, giving managers and employees a clear guide towards moving forward and achieving their goals more successfully. Employee evaluations tend to be uncomfortable situations, follow the advice in this article, practice, and you’ll soon get the raise fueled by a well-presented Performance Review.