Reviewing Your STAFF REVIEW Processes.

By James Vivian

Feedback, whether receiving or providing, can be uncomfortable, unproductive and difficult, however, when done with intention, it can be enlightening, powerful and can make the difference between a good staff member and/or team and an incredible one!

I recently reviewed our bi-annual staff review form which both myself and my team complete at the start and the middle of the year.

For me, feedback is a two-way street. In order to be able to provide it, you have to be able to receive it, and whilst I am happy to provide feedback to my team as needed, I encourage opportunities for reciprocal feedback such as with our bi-annual review.

As someone who entered this industry to look after people, as our team has grown my role has developed from caring for clients within a treatment room to one of caring for a team of therapists who look after our clients, whilst my audience has changed, my intention to look after people has not.

Every business is unique, with its own protocols, expectations, KPIs and mutual understanding of how things should be done. The review process allows for opportunities to reinforce these aspects and focus on areas that require additional attention. Enter our bi-annual review.

Historically, I would hand our team a list of questions to consider over 4-weeks, such as what professional goals they’d like to set. What they’d like to see more of at work? What they’d like to see less of? If comfortable to share, what their personal goals are and how could we assist with these? Open-ended questions are always best to allow opportunity for thought and reflection.

I would always be so excited to receive the responses and use them over the next 6-months and use them as a focus for each staff member to ensure their requests were being honoured (as much as possible) and followed up on, as often responses required a long-term commitment to achieving certain goals and requests.

I always follow up with an email confirming what we’ve discussed, where we are focused moving forward and how I am going to assist.

In 2022 I combined our bi-annual review with an anonymous satisfaction survey to seek out overall satisfaction around workplace happiness, remuneration fulfilment, support, and culture and asked our team to rank their skills and abilities. This provides both our business and our team with further benchmarking to approve.

With an internal score of 8/10 for our anonymous satisfaction survey, this provides our business with further opportunities to grow and improve from inside out.

A motto I chant to myself and our team daily is ‘There’s always room for improvement’. Be it improving one’s skills, one’s attitude, a client’s skin or beyond. So, this year I decided that it was time to upgrade our review process.

At JV, our review document always starts with my personal ambitions for the next 6-months ahead. I share these to provide insights into where I will be professionally and personally focusing my care and attention so that I can not only be the best version of myself at work but also at home as the two go hand in hand.

In addition to asking the usual questions as per above, this year I expanded upon them and included additional questions, such as: Are there ways that we can better care for our clients at JV?

When it comes to our group training, can you please provide some insights into how these work well and how we can improve?

What makes you such a special therapist? FYI, I already know why but would love to hear it from you.

From time to time, we are required to provide you with constructive feedback. Do you have any suggestions for how you personally prefer this feedback to come to you?

Any insights into your preferred communication styles would be great so that feedback can be taken in the positive and empowering way that it is always intended.

I always ask if the review process can be improved upon. During our most recent review a few people mentioned that once a year was enough so as requested, we will reduce this process to annually instead of bi-annually.

The questions you ask in your review processes need to be a reflection of the people you are working alongside and provide you with the information that you need to lead them as effectively as possible.

Don’t ask questions you don’t need to know or already know the answers to. Probe and challenge your team to think beyond their day-to-day at what gets them out of bed each morning and into the treatment room. Ask them questions you might be scared to hear the answers to as they’re the ones you should be asking.

At JV, there is a constant feedback loop circulation, so much so that often during the review process the team will say that we rectify any issues as they occur and often pre-empt them. This highlights the constant need to watch, listen, review and grow.

Now who’s ready for their review?!

@jamesvivian