How to effectively write about team member's growth areas?
End of cycle review requires managers to spend quality time reviewing the overall performance of their team members. Managers are expected summarise team members' impact or contribution, strengths, growth areas and future experiences.
Growth areas are the gaps in terms of hard or soft skills, demonstrated by the employee during the previous performance summary cycle, that require further development.
A few guidelines for managers on how to articulate a team member's growth areas are:
- Consistent with Impact - When summarising an employee's growth areas, managers must note that these areas should be consistent with the impact achieved by the employee during the performance summary cycle. For example, if the growth area is "presentation skills" the manager should not refer to "communication" as the desired growth area.
- Clearly visible - The growth areas should be clearly visible and supported by specific instances. For example, "The presentation slides for the XYZ project were too busy and unreadable as the employee used more text in the slides. It is recommended that the employee should undergo training in advanced powerpoint skills. "
- Substantive - In addition to the clear visibility, the growth areas must be substantive i.e. important, meaningful and considerable.
- Peer validation - Managers should collect feedback from the colleagues with which the employee has collaborated in his or achievements. A validation by peers lends credibility to the impact summary.
