As the mid-year point is coming up, it is important to think about implementing mid-year reviews within your company. Mid-year reviews provide extra time to evaluate your employees’ objectives and make sure you’re on target to hit their yearly goals. Here are several things to keep in mind as you build out your plan for this unique feedback opportunity.

Take Time to Mark Progress

Annual reviews from the end of the previous year make for a strong benchmark of progress in an employee’s performance. Mid-year is enough time to allow staff members who are working toward improving to achieve their goals. If marked progress is not readily visible, speak openly with your team members about why they may be struggling and what resources you can provide to help them succeed. If they are clearly motivated toward achieving their goals, now is a great time to recognize their efforts and do what you can to encourage further development.

Remember to Build on Successes

While end-of-year reviews are often relied on to evaluate financial compensation, a mid-year review is all about recognizing and improving overall performance. One smart way to do that is to recognize strengths and build on successes. By starting from a positive place, you can work closely with them to brainstorm ideas on how to improve in a similar way in other areas if needed. This strategy will help to motivate and inspire your workers to use their strengths to continue succeeding and bringing their best selves to the job every day. Simple verbal recognition of your employees’ strong suits will help you engage them in their work and encourage them to think how best their positive qualities can impact the company.

Start Making Proactive Decisions

For those employees who are having obvious difficulty delivering on their goals of improving performance at the six-month mark, you have an opportunity to start considering a replacement before the rush of year-end. Mid-year is a good time to start proactively evaluating your future needs and even seeking a replacement for the employees who are not able to deliver on your needs. Avoiding the need to suddenly fill a position during more stressful times of the year will help you be more selective in your hiring and provide the time and space required to balance workload in the interim. The key is to make a decision you will stand by and allows you to proactively and strategically evaluate your needs as a company without the added stress of hiring a replacement right away.

For those times when you do need to start thinking creatively about finding replacements, contact a recruiter at Verum Technical. We can help you lay out your path to staffing success in the second half of 2018 and beyond.