Small businesses are failing to review staff performance

As part of ongoing research into the habits of British employers, one of the UK’s fastest growing online HR consultancies conducted a study of small businesses in a bid to discover how often performance reviews are conducted and if employees have clear progression goals in place set by their manager.
 
The study, conducted by www.Reabur.com, asked firms with 20 or less staff, how often they have ‘one to ones’ with their employees, as well as if their staff have clear and reachable goals and if they have a official process in place for performance reviews.
 
According to the study, three quarters, 73 per cent, of the respondents didn’t have an ‘official’ process in place for performance reviews with their staff. When these respondents were asked why this was the case, more than half, 53 per cent, said it was due to ‘lack of time’.
 
In contrast, only a quarter of the employers asked said that they had an ‘official’ process in place for performance reviews. A slightly less figure also claimed that all of their staff members had ‘clear and reachable’ goals for progression in place. 
   
Georgina Read, co-managing director of Reabur.com, had the following to say about the findings, “I cannot stress enough the importance of regular and formal performance reviews. They may seem like a mundane task and some managers may not look forward to conducting them, but they are a great opportunity for mangers to fully understand their team’s strengths and weaknesses and set performance targets, carefully aligned to the Company wide Strategy.  ‘’
She continued,
 
“Once a couple of reviews have taken place they will start to become quicker and easier. Although informal one-to-ones are great and build relationships of trust amongst the team, they do not provide the employee and manager with a well thought out, structured meeting in which future career objectives and opportunities can be fully explored.  It is always beneficial for the employer to have a paper trail, documenting valuable discussions, where performance targets can be regularly revisited to ensure key objectives remain on track and any challenges overcome.”