How to make performance reviews meaningful again

Employees should co-own their performance reviews instead of just receiving them from their manager. That starts with setting objectives together, so people have a stake in what they’re measured against. The review should also cover more than basic performance — including development and career direction — in a short and interactive format. 

The tool matters too. Spreadsheets make reviews time-consuming to manage and hard to secure, cross-reference, and search. A dedicated performance management platform structures every review and keeps objectives tracked across the year. 

Picard Surgelés, a frozen-food retailer with 5,000 employees, rewrote its review templates, rethought its approach to the annual review, and moved its reviews onto Elevo. Completion of its latest annual review campaign rose from 40% to 88%. As Pierre-Jean Cariès, Head of HR Development at Picard Surgelés, puts it: “We worked on an ecosystem. We didn’t just implement a new tool.” 

People won't commit to a process they don't understand or see the point of. Building awareness among managers and employees gets them on board, and it works best in two steps.

Short workshops break down managers' assumptions about the annual review and build their skills in preparing for it. They also show managers how to guide employees through their self-assessment, so both sides arrive at the conversation prepared.

Invite managers who stand out in the workshops to become internal ambassadors. A colleague describing how the review helped their team carries more weight than any HR announcement.

Greenflex, a specialist in environmental and social transition, keeps the conversation going with monthly HR cafés, where the HR team explains what the annual review is for and which HR projects are under way.

A review earns its credibility through what happens next. In a 2020 Welcome to the Jungle survey, 70% of employees regretted that no tangible action followed their annual review.

HR can turn what reviews surface into training plans, internal mobility, coaching, and mentoring. In Assessio Talent Suite, People Review tracks the action plans that come out of talent calibration, so decisions lead to follow-through. Labeyrie Fine Foods, for example, brought its talent review and managerial 360° feedback into one process, turning manager and peer input into individual development plans. 

HR also needs to tell employees what it has done. HR teams are often seen as working in a bubble, and when employees don’t see the work, it can strain the relationship all the way into the next review. 

The annual review is a foundation, but once a year isn’t often enough to stay aligned with the business. 360° feedback campaigns add self and peer input to the manager’s view, and regular one-to-ones keep managers and their direct reports talking between reviews. Some organisations also add a mid-year review. 

More touchpoints give managers a fuller record to draw on, too. Observations noted through the year counter recency bias, the tendency to judge someone mainly on their last few months. 

Etienne le Scaon and Thibault Vilon, co-founders of Elevo, go further: “The annual review is very formal and would benefit from becoming quarterly or half-yearly, which would let companies build on the relationship they’ve developed with employees. Otherwise, employees risk disengaging, and the financial consequences for the business can be heavy.” 

Not every organisation can run several review campaigns a year, so choose the rhythm that fits how you work. Assessio Talent Suite supports annual, mid-year, and quarterly review campaigns alongside 360° feedback, so you can add moments for dialogue when you’re ready. 

A performance review becomes meaningful when employees help shape it, understand its purpose, see action follow, and keep talking afterwards. Start with the change your process needs most, and use our annual review template to structure your next round of conversations.