Simple Steps to Help Prep for Your Year-End Review

With less than 2 months left before the end of the year, many companies are starting to gear up for end of year reviews. Here are a few simple things to do to prepare:

1. Update your feedback folder. A feedback folder is an email folder where you keep all the positive notes you receive during the year - congratulations, a special thank you, accolades for you & your team - file them in a separate location so you can access them come review time. It’s a great place to start when you’re trying to remember all your highlights of the year. If you don’t have one, it’s not too late to start. Set aside a few minutes every week for the next month to dig through your emails from this year. And, make an effort (maybe a monthly calendar reminder) to send positive notes to those you work with on a regular basis that they can file in their own feedback folders.

2. Check your goals. Ideally you should be checking in regularly on your progress to goals throughout the year. But, sometimes we get so busy in the day to day that we may forget larger goals we wanted to work toward. Start pulling together data and supporting documentation to showcase your progress to your goals this year. And, if some of these goals are not going to be met or no longer relevant, start thinking about what obstacles or changes you encountered over the last several months.

3. Solicit feedback. If your company does not automatically incorporate 360 or peer reviews into its annual process, consider asking your manager if they can be included as part of your evaluation this year - your manager can then reach out to colleagues and cross functional partners for their thoughts (many prefer these 360s to be anonymous so having your manager make the request instead of yourself may make the recipients of your review requests more responsive).

4. Start thinking about your goals for next year. Where do you want to be next year at this time? Are you eyeing a promotion, a team change or perhaps a class you’re interested in completing? Deciding on your goals for yourself and your team should be a conversation between you and your manager during the year-end evaluation process - you want to be prepared when those conversations happen.

If you’re looking for support in reaching your goals and think maybe a career coach is what you are looking for, reach out for a free consultation.