5 Tips for Evaluating 2020 Performance

Published: January 12, 2021
Estimated reading time: 4 min

你在努力解决如何进行公平的绩效评估吗?

Things werenot okayin 2020 and the jury’s still out on 2021. COVID continues to intensify long-lived inequities, especially for BIPOC. People are juggling work and caregiving with little respite. Many staff are directly impacted by the violence of white supremacy, political turmoil, and the loss of community members.

In the deluge, you kept the raft afloat. You shifted strategies and staved off layoffs. You moved the work along despite reduced capacity, uneven workloads, and tragedy. Now, many of you are figuring out what to do about 2020 evaluations.

While we can’t offer a comprehensive guide, wedohave some tips. (If you’d rather skip the tips and go straight to sample language,click here.)

1. Start with you

反思一下你在2020年是如何做到的。Did you…

  • …get input from those most impacted as you set more realistic goals?
  • …保持检查?
  • …create the conditions for staff to reprioritize, set boundaries, and re-ground in purpose?

Where did you succeed and where could you have done better? It’s okay if you didn’t manage perfectly, but if there are expectations you could have been clearer about or feedback you should have given along the way, you’ll need to be prepared to acknowledge that in your evaluation conversation.

2. Adapt the form

Your goal for evaluation is to recalibrate, align, and share feedback.If you’re not offering promotions or raises this year, consider letting go of ratings and focusing more on feedback. Update your rubric to name the essential goals and lift up qualities that took on more significance like flexibility, problem-solving, and continuous learning.

3. Get beneath the surface

女性、LGBTQ人群和BIPOC通常会承受额外的压力，以证明他们的内在价值，这通常会在表演中表现出来。作为一名经理，你工作的一部分就是确保你了解员工下降背后的因素。对付出200%的新员工感到好奇:他们是一个正在崛起的高效员工，还是一个有多重边缘身份、担心工作安全的人(或者两者都有!)?

In your next one-on-one, ask questions to understand more about their performance:

  • Where do you feel like you really showed up this year? What made that possible?
  • Where did you most need support? Where do you think you’ll need support moving forward? What does that look like?
  • 你觉得你的工作量怎么样?

4. Hold the bigger picture

This year, you can’t evaluate solely based on results—weigh circumstances and effort, too.In 2020, you probably saw examples of varied performance. You might have a staff person who put in a lot of effort but experienced hardship that made it difficult to achieve gold star—or even good enough—results. Give feedback, but think twice before giving a harsh evaluation. On the flip side, if someone went above and beyond, consider whether their circumstances may have enabled them to do so, or if their coping mechanism was to throw themselves into work. While you should celebrate wins and acknowledge hard work and strong results, be mindful about doling out individual rewards.

5. Give useful (but predictable) feedback

The feedback you share in your evaluation conversation should be a summary, not a surprise. It’s also your opportunity to show your staff that you see the bigger picture, and offer coaching that will deepen connection, effectiveness, and overall sustainability.

Here’s a mini-formula:

  • Share the headline message you want them to take away from this conversation.
  • Acknowledge:
    • 他们工作的环境。
    • What was in their control, including: what they did to overcome obstacles, wins they achieved, key pivots, and lessons learned.
    • 什么在你的控制范围内(参见技巧1)。
    • Pre-pandemic bright spots (don’t let recency bias skew your review).
  • Align on new expectations or goals (including developmental or corrective ones)—recognizing that the new year doesn’t mean the pandemic has suddenly ended—and specify any concrete support you will provide along the way.

Struggling with what to say? Check out oursample language for giving feedback新冠肺炎疫情期间的绩效评估。

Other performance evaluation resources:

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