For many employees, the annual spring performance review process can cause feelings of anxiety.

Instead, annual reviews should be a valuable conversation about your personal contributions that is free from ambiguity, says Mary Elms, Manager, Organizational Development and Learning.

“If you and your manager are having regular conversations throughout the year, where you are receiving real-time feedback, setting clear expectations and working together to solve problems, there should be no surprises.”

To learn more about how to prepare and increase confidence, two sessions of Preparing for your Annual Review will be offered on Thursday, April 7 and Wednesday, April 13, both from 1 to 4 pm. In addition, two sessions of the popular Performance Management: Managers’ workshop will also be held on Tuesday, April 5 and again on Wednesday, April 20, both from 1 to 4 pm.

Regular one-on-one meetings can take place in a lot of different forms and frequencies – whatever works best for you and your manager with respect to your organizational needs, says Ms. Elms. These can take the form of walking or standing meetings once a week, a longer sit-down meeting once a month or something in between. Whatever the format, employees can get the most out of these regular check-ins by being proactive and developing a list of discussion items in advance.

Regular ongoing, informal interactions keep the lines of communication open, assist in removing barriers to performance and offer the chance to revisit annual objectives if priorities change course during the year. “Learning opportunities, challenges, successes, key decisions to be made and actions that need to be taken should be talked about on a regular basis so employees are focused on the right things at the right time,” says Ms. Elms. “In doing so, they can see clearly how they are adding value not only to their department, but also how their work fits into the big picture.”

The annual review meeting should operate on a 20-80 principle; 20 per cent of the time should be reviewing the past year with 80 per cent focusing on the future, says Ms. Elms. To develop a sense of ownership, goal-setting should be a collaborative, rather than a prescriptive process. Professional development opportunities, career progression and professional aspirations can also be discussed at this time. Employees should be encouraged to talk about what they are most proud of, says Ms. Elms. “Reflecting on your yearly accomplishments can be most rewarding.”

To register for these and other workshops, visit the Human Resources learning catalogue.