My 4-Step Framework for Better Performance Reviews

Have you ever hired someone with all the best intentions, only to realize things aren’t going as planned? Trust me, I’ve been there—and I know how hard it can be to navigate those moments as a leader.

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on how I approach those uncomfortable (but necessary!) conversations with team members. I’ll share my four-step framework for crafting effective performance reviews—the exact system I wish I had when I first started building my team.

If you’re dealing with underperformance, wondering how to have that talk, or just looking to sharpen your leadership skills, this episode is packed with real-life examples and actionable tips to help you make confident decisions that feel both firm and fair.

Click play to hear all of this and:

(00:00:26) My experience with hiring and the importance of having clearly defined roles and expectations from the beginning

(00:00:56) How to evaluate the first 30 days of a new hire's performance and when to make the decision to implement a performance improvement plan (PIP)

(00:02:54) Why you need to have an open conversation regarding performance

(00:04:43) How to adapt a performance improvement plan based on personal circumstances

(00:08:20) How employees' responses to feedback can indicate their commitment to growth and the organization

(00:10:02) Why you need to hold employees accountable to reinforce growth and development expectations

🎧 Listen to the full episode, How to Identify and Lead A, B, and C Players for Business Success, >>HERE<<

Listen to Related Episodes:

• Five Things My Team and I Do to Stay Productive and Reach Our Goals
• How to Become a More Effective Leader [Growth Challenge: Day 3]

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For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode516

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Transcript

Rosy Shephard 00:00:00  Have you ever hired somebody with the best intentions, only to find that things aren't working out the way you had imagined? Hey there, I'm Rosie, customer success manager at Social Curator, and in this short episode, Jasmine will be sharing her framework on how she navigates tough conversations with team members. She's breaking down the lessons she's learned along the way and giving you the tools to course correct when things just aren't working out. Enjoy this episode. I had hired an executive.

Jasmine Star 00:00:26  Assistant, and I believe, and I talked to my mentor and I talked to the recruiter whether or not I had clearly defined the roles and the expectations. And for all intents and purposes, I had I had to the best of my ability. Now, what we had asked the executive assistant to do took about 20 hours a week. It was taking me about 20 hours a week. It was taking somebody else on our team who was taking those responsibilities from me about 20 hours a week. Now we thought, if I can do it, if somebody else can do it, we thought we had a pretty good idea.

Jasmine Star 00:00:56  Now, if it ended up taking a new person, I don't know, 25 hours a week. Well, there was some flexibility because within the first 30 days I needed to know was it a fit? And here's what I knew in the first 30 days of hiring this executive assistant, she wasn't manifesting the clear desire to say, I want to get better. And when we had approached her, hey, at the end of 30 days, what we're seeing is that this is X, Y, and Z, and what we need to be improved for the next 30 days is going to be these things. So we put her on a pip, a performance review, and we said, here are the clear responsibilities, and here are the times associated that we think you should be using as a benchmark to get it done. And to the best of her ability. She couldn't or wouldn't follow through. And so we have had multiple conversations and we just said the kindest thing that we can do, moving from day 60 to day 90 would say, okay.

Jasmine Star 00:01:56  So in day 30 we said, this is what we need to see improve by day 60. It wasn't met by day 60, but because we're committed to your growth and commitment, We're going to actually carefully follow along and see where you're getting stuck, specifically to see if we can help navigate that. And even with us asking and saying, please make us available to what it is you're doing, it didn't happen. And so at the end of the 90 days, it wasn't a shock to anybody that we did not extend a role for employment at that time. So if you're hearing this and you know, deep down you have a teammate who needs to start a performance review, please take action. I have waited way too long with so many people because I was like, it's uncomfortable. I don't know what to do. Like I'm nervous, have that conversation. There's no such thing as a bad or a hard conversation. It's just a conversation. And if you approach it with humility and the desire to help that person be better on your team, then that person is going to feel it.

Jasmine Star 00:02:54  I think a lot of times for me, it was tempting to think, oh, they just need more time or they're just going to get it soon enough. But if you're not comfortable with how they're performing right now, I can promise you they're showing you the best they have. It's not going to get better. They're showing the best thing that they can in that first 30 days. I'm just going to come out and say it's not a them thing. It's a you thing. It's a me thing. You need to tell them what your clear expectations are and clearly define how that they're going to adhere to them. Now, here are the four steps to follow when it comes to creating a performance review. If you've never done one, I wish you know, when I go back in my career, I'm like, I wish I had this framework, so I'm just sharing what I wish I had the first time I had to venture into a performance review. And I have to tell you, what comes up is like, I get really nervous.

Jasmine Star 00:03:39  What comes up was like, who am I to do this? What comes up is I wonder what they're going to think about me. That was me then, and now I just have completely come to understand that it is my objective, and it is your objective to build and protect your business according to your standards. It doesn't mean that they're not talented, that they're not good, that they're not capable. It is. They're going to find the perfect fit for them elsewhere. But for you, as CEO of your business, you must choose what is best for the organization. So step one is to get to the underlying issue behind the performance, get to the root cause of their performance issues. Is it a lack of skills? Help them get skills? Is it lack of motivation? Well, if it's lack of motivation, probably not going to be helpful because people have to be intrinsically motivated. Just something else. Now I had an opportunity to move somebody into a Pip, and when I took the time to actually understand what was going on in her situation, she had said, you know what? I haven't been as available for work.

Jasmine Star 00:04:43  I haven't been paying attention. I've been missing deadlines because she had become recently a caretaker for her mom. It was a very private matter. If I didn't take the time to sit and have a conversation with her one on one, for her to let me know that her mom got sick and her mom moved in with her, and her taking care of her mom was impacting the amount of work that she did. I don't know if I would have ever learned that. So me listening to the story and saying, hey, we're here to help and we're here to support, we will absolutely be flexible with what you need us to be flexible on. So her Pip turned into less about performance and less about time management. What could we do to help this? What can we take things to take off our plate? How long might it take for her to get used to her being at home with her mom? That was a very different pip than, hey, you're not doing a job. It was just, hey, there's a lot in your plate.

Jasmine Star 00:05:28  How do we sit here and support that? That became a very different performance review. Step number two is to provide clear and direct feedback and expectations. Now to do this you're going to want to explain how achieving those results, achieving those things aligns with the organizational objectives. Now this is going to be a test. If I tell somebody like hey you need to do X, y and Z because it aligns with our goal and then they become defensive or argumentative, or maybe they're just unwilling to change. That has happened before. Like it is likely time to part ways that energy transfer between people. You get a very clear read at where they're at now. I was working with a former manager of customer success here at Social Curator, and this person that continuously asked to hire more people. And before we hired, I asked the manager to create a system on how the team handled tickets and the average response time. I asked this person, hey, maybe you can change the system so that we're optimizing for turnaround time, not optimizing for specific team members on cost to do that.

Jasmine Star 00:06:31  So here's what was happening. Tickets were coming in. They were being assigned to a specific Customer Success team member, but not everybody on our team was working full time. So if somebody came in for, let's just say like a six hour shift and they didn't respond within that six hours to the second follow up, the person who was emailing had to wait a full 24 hours to get a response. And I thought to myself, this is silly. So we're asking for more people to work part time. But if we just change the system so that we said we have a standard way of responding to tickets and they're not specific to each team member, well, we wouldn't have to hire more people. We would just have to train everybody on how to jump into other people's conversations. So I had asked her, please create a system that trains the team on tickets and not personalities. And because I asked her to create a system and it wasn't in alignment to what she wanted to do, and it wasn't in alignment to how she wanted to run that department.

Jasmine Star 00:07:21  She put in her notice a month later. I was bummed. I really loved this person, but this person had a very distinct way of doing it. And I, as the protector and an organizational structure person on this team who saw a very clear way to build a system for optimized productivity and managing costs, which is my job. It wasn't in alignment. Now, it doesn't mean that this person wasn't in alignment for somebody else's organization who wanted to handle it that way and had a budget to hire out a team, but it wasn't in alignment here. We became out of alignment. She made a decision, and it was the good call. Now, on the flip side of this, if you feel like an employee is receptive, excited to grow, and grateful for this feedback that shows they're committed to their role and they care about the company's goals and vision as a whole. And if that's the case, the feedback will motivate them, and they're going to be excited to implement your feedback on their next assignment or project.

Jasmine Star 00:08:20  Now I want to pause here. Let's just play out the situation differently. For that manager who put in her notice and she left the organization, what would have it looked like if she had said, hey, I don't necessarily agree that your approach is best, but I'm willing to try and test it. If she had tried and tested and we ended up with the same results, I would have stood down. I would have said, well, we have proof that the test didn't work. So now we get to create a new test or go back to your other way of doing it and hiring more people. All I needed from the manager was to say, I'm open and willing to try something else to get a different data set so that we can actually make an organizational decision. Now, as a quick review, step one was when somebody is on a performance review, understand the underlying issue. Step two is providing clear feedback and expectations. Now on to step three. You want to offer tailored support and development.

Jasmine Star 00:09:11  Now, I know this seems time consuming and quite honestly, you feel like man do I have to handhold, but this is the only way you're going to be able to see whether you're going to get a team member up to speed, you're going to see, oh, this is where they're getting tripped up. But more importantly, they're going to see that you care about their improvement when a team member is in Pip. Their direct report is available at any time in slack. They can get a meeting with their manager. That's a priority. They can even have a weekly check in if they want. In fact, sometimes we request the weekly check in. Now, if we want people to succeed and we do, then we're going to show up for them, and we're going to need to ensure that we did everything we could to support their outlined expectations. We don't want them feeling like they're like set up to sink. Now, the last step of the framework is to hold them accountable. Employees want to be held accountable.

Jasmine Star 00:10:02  Accountability demonstrates your commitment to their growth and development, and it reinforces those expectations for continued growth and advancement on the team.

Rosy Shephard 00:10:12  Thank you for tuning in today. The team, and I hope this episode gave you some clarity on how to handle the tough parts of leadership, like when performance isn't where you want it to be. We'd be so grateful if you shared this episode with another business owner who needs to hear this. Until next time.