How to Get a Great Performance Review

Over the years, I have worked with hundreds of clients on resumes, job search and interviewing skills. I am constantly amazed at how few people have any idea of the importance of their jobs or the effect their work has on an organization’s bottom line.

Managers and supervisors seldom educate employees on how their work relates to the function and profitability of the company. On the other hand, employees rarely ask their managers and supervisors to explain specifically how their tasks bring value to the organization. For that matter, what the cost is if something is not done right?

In today’s world, just doing what you are told is not enough. If you want to be valued, promoted or even just keep your job, you must become an active problem solver and participate in the success of your organization. The company is not paying you to just shuffle paper.

One of my clients, who is the Supervisor of a Customer Service Department for a large international medical device company, told me that one of her employees made nine errors in orders over the last month, These errors cost the company between $500 and $2000 per error. Nine errors out of 1100 calls a month may not seem like many, until you calculate the total cost.

Those errors directly affect the company’s bottom line! Other customer service reps make an average of three or fewer errors per month. By comparison, the employee who made more errors is not only failing to add value, she is actually costing the company her salary, and benefits, plus the cost of the errors. However, if she doesn’t ask, or her supervisor does not tell her, how could she understand why nine errors a month could cause her to lose her job?

Companies are in business to make money. If they don’t make money, there is no job for you. So, it is in your best interest to understand how your job saves or makes money for the company. The concepts of "value" and "cost" are not always as simple and straightforward as the example above.

Another client wrote in her résumé that she had worked with the Dean of Notre Dame School of Business to create a case study project for his graduate and undergraduate classes. I asked why that was an accomplishment? She said it was because the company was a startup and could not afford to pay for the cutting edge technology and business strategy consulting they needed. Using her company as a case study project gave the Dean’s classes a real-life problem to solve.

I asked if the students’ ideas were good and had any of them been implemented? The answer was a resounding yes! The implementation of student ideas cost the company $75,000 in computer hardware, software and proprietary data connections. After some discussion, we determined that her initiative produced the following benefits to the company.

• Saved the company an estimated $20,000 in consulting fees.
• Increased revenue by 15% the first year.
• Reduced overhead and increased productivity an estimated $86,000 annually.
• Decreased paperwork turnaround time by 30%, decreased generation of new paperwork by 40%.
• Positioned company to expand by 30% without additional cost.

My client said that was so natural and easy to come up with the idea and follow through on it that she never realized the huge value it produced for the company. If she had not thought to quantify the value of her project, it is doubtful that her bosses did either.

If you want to have a really great performance review, find out where your job fits into the overall function of the organization. How does what you do affect other departments (positively or negatively)? What problems do you see and what action could you take that would fix them? If you streamline a process, how will it improve the bottom line? Figure out how to quantify the value of solving a problem or coming up with a better way to do something.

If you don’t measure it and report it, you are unlikely to get credit for it. Your boss is a busy person and does not know all the extra things you do that are not on your assignment list. Give your boss a monthly report on your accomplishments (bottom line value to the organization). See “Write You Own Report Card” for an excellent reporting format. Also see “Demonstrating Value to Your Clients and your Boss".

Month by month, you will build a wonderful record of the value you bring to the organization. When it is time for your performance review or to update your résumé, all the data will be there.

We all make mistakes. You simply need to show that the value you bring is much greater than the cost of the mistakes you make.