Take active role in next performance evaluation

For the first 12 years of his career, Richard Nolan says his annual performance review was an excuse to have an extra- long lunch with his boss. “I’d pick out a decent steak house or a seafood place and we would order the best food on the menu, have a couple of beers and then call it a day,” says the 38- year- old software sales representative. Times have certainly changed. During Nolan’s most recent review, he says he sat in front of a four- person team, including three people he had never seen before. “They proceeded to rip me apart for details that were never even part of my reviews in the past. They scrutinized every single travel receipt, every single expense report and every single sale and attempted sale I had worked on during the past year,” Nolan says. “When it was over, I gave them my two- week notice. My dad used to tell me there are times in life when you can see the odds stacked up against you and your best strategy is just to cut and run. This was one of those times.”

Nolan says he didn’t mind the scrutiny he had been his team’s leading sales representative for 10 out of the past 12 years, but he just felt like he was ambushed by “black- and- white statistics” that told an incomplete story about his work.

“I have no problem being held accountable for the work I do and the money that I spend to do that work, but anyone in sales can tell you that it is difficult to look at everything from a perspective of only numbers,” Nolan says. “A couple of lunches that don’t result in a sale this year may turn into a milliondollar deal next year. That’s the way the game is played. That’s the way I’ve always played it.”

Nolan says his previous reviews — those extended lunches with his former boss — were exercises in reflection, brainstorming and more than a few laughs. “We’d talk about what didn’t work in the previous 12 months, how I could fix that in the year ahead and basically talk about business, family and whatever else was going on,” he says. “In hindsight, they weren’t much of reviews at all but they did the job.”

More than a formality

John Putzier, author of “Get Weird! 101 Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work,” says employees who fail to go through comprehensive reviews early in their careers are often at a disadvantage when those reviews become a larger part of their company’s compensation plan. “Most employers use a variety of metrics to judge their employees — some very sophisticated tools — and unless employees are prepared, those reviews can feel like an indictment of their work,” Putzier says.

But Putzier says if employees know how they’ll be judged, they can make sure those tools are working to their advantage. “Don’t just assume your review is a quick meeting and a pat on the back,” he says. “Take a look at the criteria and then make sure you’re doing what is asked of you and more.”

Tricia Lowell, a medical information specialist in Dallas, says she took a similar strategy after her review in 2014. “My job is about speed and accuracy,” she says. “It’s about processing the forms so that all the medical information and insurance information match.”

In some cases, Lowell says, a missing digit in a procedural code can be result in an erroneous large bill from hospital to patient. “You enter a ‘ 5’ instead of a ‘ 6’ and if it’s not caught, the insurance company may deny a payment,” she says.

For the first time, Lowell’s 2014 review ranked errors based on dollars. “If there’s a code about Tylenol instead of aspirin, that’s not going to draw too many red flags, but if it’s something that involves a medical procedure, the costs are going to be vastly different,” she says.

Armed with that information, Lowell says she began triple- checking any data that reflected costs of more than $ 1,000. “I double- check everything but I figured I’d do more for the big- ticket procedures,” she says. “When I went in for my review this year, I knew exactly what they were going to tell me and in some cases, I could clearly point out how there were other factors at work, like changed codes and a few discrepancies in procedures from the hospital.”

Don’t skip the self- review

One way to avoid an annual review surprise is to do a thorough critique of your own work beforehand. “I think most people will find that they can see some of the same areas for growth if they take the time to look at their performance on the job,” says Putzier, who offers three tips for performance self- review:

1. Good and bad: Create a balance chart by simply drawing a line down the center of the page and labeling one side with a plus sign and the other with a minus sign.

2. Step outside: Try to use the perspective of a client or coworker. What kind of customer service have you provided the boss or employer over your tenure with the company?

3. Question everything: Ask yourself the following questions: To what degree have my services added value? To what degree have I been “low maintenance,” meaning easy to manage, work with and work for? To what degree have I done more than what is defined in my job description? If my boss had to force rank everyone who worked for him or her, where would I rank, and why? If I worked for me, and was preparing a list of strengths and weaknesses, what would they be?