From Monologue to Dialogue: 5 Tips for More Meaningful Mid-Year Reviews

Mid-year reviews are the perfect time to reset your GPS and ensure mutual alignment. Yet, these evaluations often miss their mark because they tend to be one-way communications from the manager to the employee that focus solely on performance and feel like a mandatory exercise for many. Here are 5 tips to transform them into a more meaningful experience.

1 Give the Stage to Your Employee

Microphone

Allow your employees to perform a self-evaluation before the main event begins. This creates a two-way dialogue between manager and employee and helps prevent surprises! Employees should ask themselves: What highlights do I want to emphasize? What have I learned and developed in the past 6 months? And how do I want to continue to develop in the coming year?

2 Align Goals and Objectives Together

Fine-tune

Consider mid-year reviews as a moment of reflection. It’s the perfect time to review previously set goals or objectives and adjust them if necessary. Is there a change in market trends or strategic decisions? No problem. Let your managers and employees come together to redefine those objectives.

3 Provide Crystal Clear, Actionable Feedback

Feedback

When giving feedback, it’s important to be clear and concise. Ensure your managers know exactly which questions to ask and provide clear feedback to their team members. Here are some key questions they can use:

  • What is this employee doing well that they should continue to do?
  • What is the main development goal they need to work on?
  • What support do they need to progress with individual development goals?
  • What support can they use to further develop in their role?
  • What is something this employee is currently doing that they need to stop?
  • How do they demonstrate the company’s values X and Y?
 

4 Put Development in the Spotlight

 
Focus on Development

Don’t dwell on the past, but focus the spotlight on the horizon. Highlight specific career opportunities within your organization, such as development programs, available training, and exciting projects that employees can participate in. Show that your organization is not just a career stop but a launchpad for their future.

You can easily add developments in huapii

5 360° reviews

360 Feedback

Gather information from various references to get a complete picture. A 360° review provides a complete view from all angles. It helps paint a more detailed portrait of what is going well and what could be refined.

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In conclusion, mid-year reviews are an opportune moment not only to reassess performance but also to create a dialogue that enables both employees and managers to reflect, align, and grow together. This transforms your mid-year reviews from a mandatory ritual into a valuable conversation.

 

Alice

TRANCHANT

Co-Founder & COO

I always found a way to get or to create for myselfs jobs where I could achieve my life’s purpose: connecting with people and helping them grow (while growing myself).

After studying general management and HR in Lyon, I joined Solvay where I had several rich & diverse HR experiences. I worked in Lyon, Brussels and Paris, to finally come back to Brussels and accept the challenge of creating and managing Solvay’s Digital Studio flagship.

Being an intrapreneur leading an innovation incubator, taking part of creating a new ways of working platform that transformed the company culture and HR woke up my inner intrapreneur and made me jump into co-founding huapii!

Today at huapii I use my HR and change experience to make the workplace a developing and empowering place to be.