Why You Need to Seek Out Live Feedback
Many companies in accounting firms use some sort of system of formal evaluations that HR can utilize when making decisions. These systems can be an effective tool to provide feedback but are often not the best method. Today we're going to talk about why you should utilize or seek out live feedback instead of waiting for your evaluation.
You Can Have a Conversation, Not an Interpretation
The biggest problems that I've had with my performance evaluations were that they were in writing and I couldn't tell what my evaluator really meant. Many evaluation systems give someone a score and different evaluators will give different numbers to the same people for the same performance. This can cause the person being evaluated to think that they are over performing or underperforming because they are interpreting the evaluation system differently than their evaluator. The value and performance evaluations come from the communication of what can be improved on and that is best done through a conversation with the person. Taking the time to provide in-person feedback about things they're doing right and things they can improve on is far better than leaving them a note. From that conversation you might be able to contextualize what motivates this person or help them personalize a strategy to improve in the areas they're struggling with.
It's More Likely to be Timely
Formal evaluation systems generally take place at specific intervals. These intervals could be regular check-ins throughout the year such as quarterly meetings. They can also be automatically pushed out if someone works a certain number of hours on a job. In either of these cases, taking the time to have a live conversation with someone before their performance evaluation occurs will provide the opportunity to give them feedback while they're in a better position to act on it. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten evaluations that were weeks or months after I did a job that contains some little bit of information that really would have benefited everyone if I was told while the job was still going on. Incorporating timely feedback is critical for the growth of the person being evaluated, and it's particularly important in roles that tend to grow and evolve very quickly such as ones in public accounting.
You Can Ask for Feedback That People Don't Want to Write Down
As I mentioned in the first point of this post, people should be wary about how things are interpreted. Giving someone something in writing can lead to them (or human resources) reading it over and over and not properly understanding the intent. For this reason, many people, myself included, will avoid giving certain types of feedback in writing to ensure it doesn't overshadow everything. If someone shows up late one day and it seems like a one-time occurrence, I'd rather have a conversation about it then put it in a formal evaluation. Especially in cases where there's a bit of constructive feedback, people might have a lot of little things to share that they don't want to put in writing because they are just harder to communicate effectively outside of a conversation. Conversation might also be a nice springboard to ask for some feedback that wouldn't be in that written performance evaluation such as little tips and tricks to make certain things easier.
Seeking out live feedback might not be natural to everyone. you might want to start by simply requesting a 15-minute meeting to ask for help on something and gradually move on from there. whatever the case might be for you, I hope you can see the value in this live feedback and take some steps to seek it out for yourself in the future.