This video shares a collection of “Best Performance Review Tips” from Mary Abbajay and the Washington Business Report. All of the tips are useful, but I want to stress your advice that you should go through the entire term (she says “year”) and gather your accomplishments to support your argument.
Abbajay advises that you can’t rely on your boss to remember all the great things that you have done. The same applies to me. There are nearly 100 students in the course, so it’s difficult for me to remember everything that you have done. I have the gradebook, but we all know that you are more than a few checkmarks in a gradebook. Be sure that you show me your accomplishments in your final.
Watch the video for further advice:
Note: This video has closed captioning, so it does not need a transcript.
10 Comments
I found this video helpful in the mindset to take when approaching the performance review. She advised to solicit feedback from coworkers, which I did earlier last week by talking to one of my fellow students in the course about what we have both accomplished throughout. Also, she emphasizes to be factual, which I have seen in the examples of the final review with the graphs and factual information about what the students accomplished throughout the semester.
I’ve always wondered the level of response in performance review. Her advice of going through email, going through project in the beginning of the year sounds like a great idea. I do have a tendency to focus on the work in later in the work/semester. I also like the fact that she said use the factual numbers rather than just how the project went. I think those numbers actually helps the reviewer to objectify the changes that I made that will help them evaluate in the right way.
I thought this video was really helpful, and is definitely something I will apply both for the final exam in this class and my co-op performance review in the coming weeks. I am a little curious though–she mentioned that we should discuss areas to improve in the performance review. This makes sense for work, but for a grade? I think there’s a few differences between a performance review and the way this final exam is structured that makes some of the advice a little confusing. She says that you shouldn’t be using a performance review as a bargaining chip, but isn’t that exactly what we’re doing? The whole point of our performance review is to back up our request for a grade, so I’m unsure of how to proceed with both things in mind.
I agree, Katie. I was confused about those aspects. I think it is important to talk about how you have improved over the course of the semester, but it might not be the best to talk about how you could have done better throughout the semester because you are arguing for the grade you should get. I think that the video mostly just gives a good mindset to approach the review with but it does not exactly align because a work-place self evaluation is different from the evaluation we’re doing for the final.
This might be helpful for the question about talking about where you need to improve. The section in the Final Exam page says that we need to compare our performance to the expectations of the course and specifically states, “Be sure that you consider your work in the entire course, and if relevant, be honest about where you fell short.”
I thought about this as I was watching the video, too. The final is slightly different than a performance review for work – the main difference being that we are trying to explain that we deserve a certain grade while, at work, we purely talk about performance and don’t bargain for salaries. Thus, it may seem like doing self harm by talking about areas for improvements… I’m guessing that this section does not have to be added if you were the “perfect” student by submitting high quality assignments and did every possible thing to “Earn a Grade of a B or Higher”. But, people generally not perfect, so it wouldn’t hurt to mention one small area that could be better. I’m sure Ms. Gardner understands this. Even if we acknowledge areas for improvement, I think it could be easily masked and even emphasize the strengths in our performance.
This video gave some good advice, especially for where to start when finding things to talk about for the final in this class. I think what would have helped even more though is explaining what to do once the information is collected. I’ve begun writing my performance review, which is going well so far, but I’m hesitant to go further until I know exactly how I want to organize the material. Out of all five topics she discussed, the first and last ones were the most helpful, since I didn’t initially think to solicit ideas from my group members, and the last topic does start to answer what to do with the information. At the end of the video, she explains that one has to be their own advocate of improvement, which may sound simple, but it truly does matter because a boss cannot possibly know everything that someone has done for a whole year.
I agree, I think it could’ve explained the information regarding the steps following the information collection. I think once the information is collected it should be used in the correct section of the review. If it has to do with your consistency put it under that, or if it is an example of your timeliness you should use it there. I think being your own advocate for improvement is important, so in a self review it’s also important to address the areas that you can work on more and put more effort towards.
I found this very informative for how to get through performance reviews I will have in the future, and more so the final exam we will have in this class. I thought it was a very good idea to not solely focus on the work you have completed at the end of the semester, but also focus on work that you completed earlier on. I feel like this will also show that you are a consistent and hard worker. Additionally, I completely agree that it is a good idea to speak with classmates and compare the work you have completed throughout the year. This will help give you an idea on where you stand in comparison to others. Finally, I agree that people should try and analyze what they have accomplished, what they have done well, what they have done not so well, and where they want to grow in different aspects of their lives. I plan on doing this in more areas of my own life.
The work have done is recognized and heard and seen and without the fear to put anyone else done. I like this attitude some much. I definitely will apply this in my final exam and final presentation for my other course. I am working on my final performance last weekend and I didn’t know so much to up on it besides all the assignments and comments I post for the daily log. I totally agree that it’s a good idea to talk to the classmates and compare the work you’ve done in a year that will help you understand your position on how you compare to others. I also like the fact that she said is if we can actualize the progress and turn it into number, that will really stick in people’s mind.