70% of managers think that annual reviews are pointless. And yet, the annual appraisal interview should be THE most important moment of the year, because it's a real management tool. It's an interview during which manager and employee take stock of the past year in order to :

• Taking stock of the past year
• Take stock of manager-employee collaboration: what went well and what didn't?
• 360° feedback
• Identify and share areas for improvement
• Highlight employees' strengths and successes, identify their weaknesses
• Set objectives for the coming year
• Identify training needs for the coming year to develop skills
• Gather information on the employee's career aspirations and reflect together on their professional development. 

This annual review is an important moment for managers and employees, which is often missed due to a lack of preparation on both the manager's and the employee's side. 

In this article, you'll find 5 practical tips to help you prepare for an individual appraisal interview as a manager, and make it an engaging, constructive and actionable exchange. A real turnkey preparation kit to improve your management of annual appraisal interviews.

1. Make your employee responsible for preparing his or her annual performance review

We all have in mind the image of the employee who waits for his annual appraisal interview to find out what he's going to be eaten with and what his manager has to offer him for the coming year. This passive posture, which can be seen in some employees during annual appraisal interviews, is the first situation you need to avoid as a manager if you want your appraisal interview to be a success.

More broadly, it is undeniable that the rapid evolution of professions and working conditions calls for a continuous approach to development, involving greater autonomy for employees, so that they can play a full part in their own development. 

So let's start by helping managers to adopt an active stance when it comes to their personal and professional development, right from the annual appraisal interviews.

So how do you help your employees take stock of the past year?

First, invite them to analyze their strengths and abilities:

• What are their professional skills?
• What are their personal skills?
• What are their favorite activities?
• What do they see as their priorities for development in the short to medium term?
• What courses of action would they identify to improve on the previously identified development areas? How would they rank them in terms of impact and effort?

Next, suggest that your employees identify what gives meaning to their work: 

• What is the impact they want to have around them (builder, innovator, federator...)?
• What's their Why? 
• How can they express their Why in your company (missions, innovative areas, cross-functional projects), but also in their personal lives (associative or cultural involvement, etc.)?

Finally, ask them to take a step back from the way they work: 

• What are their main values and needs in their professional life (e.g. stability, change, security, recognition...)?
• How are these values expressed in their current work environment?
• What actions could they implement (time management techniques, communication methods, entourage...) to better align their professional effectiveness and fulfillment?

All this work of introspection and taking a step back from the past year and future aspirations will enable your employees to arrive better prepared on the day of the annual performance review, and to adopt a proactive stance on the actions they can put in place for the year ahead.

If you'd like to support your employees in their self-awareness and help them ask themselves the right questions for ongoing development, NUMA has developed the "Build your compass" playlist, which you can discover here.

2. Define your vision of success for your annual appraisal interview

Ensuring that your employee arrives well-prepared for his or her annual appraisal interview does not exempt you from a good preparation phase for the appraisal interview.

The first step in preparation is to clearly define an employee's vision of a successful annual performance review: "As a manager, I'll be satisfied with this annual performance review if... [complete this sentence]". To define it, you can ask yourself these questions, for example:

• What do you want your employee to get out of this interview? 
• What behaviors/actions do you want him to adopt at the end of this interview?
• Finally, what "pact" would you like to establish with him at the end of the appraisal interview, which will form the basis of your assessment over the coming months?

For example, for an employee in difficulty, a vision of success could be: "If we agree on realistic objectives and associated actions that enable me to form a conviction about the employee in 6 months' time" .

On the other hand, for a top performer / top talent, a vision of success could be: "If he is re-engaged on his position for the coming year, giving him actions to correct points that are not penalizing today but will be in the future".

Defining your vision of success for your annual performance review will then enable you to define clear and simple messages to convey during the performance review.

How can you create clear, simple messages to convey during your annual appraisal interviews?

• Avoid full workup or diagnosis
• A future-oriented message
• A message that helps your employee project into the next 6/12 months
• Write out in full the messages you want to get across, to avoid improvisations (and therefore approximations).

3. Define the employee's development priorities in advance and set objectives

Once you've defined your vision for the success of your annual appraisal, and drafted the messages you want to get across, it's key to define the areas of development you'll be asking your employee to focus on, so as to make this appraisal interview an actionable exchange.

The first step in defining areas for development is to gather feedback from peers. You can collect it orally, to avoid too much formalism and to have as many details and concrete examples as possible to illustrate the feedback. Among these feedbacks, select those for which you have actionable suggestions or on which you will trigger a coaching conversation to better understand your collaborator. 

To ensure that you have a good stock of feedback to draw on during the individual appraisal interview, we also recommend that you create a feedback file to record your feedback throughout the year, thus saving time when preparing for the interview. To build this feedback file, open an Excel or Google Sheet document in which you will create four columns: context, observation, impact and next step.

This file template incorporates the fundamentals of the COIN method, which you can also use to express your feedback and avoid the undesirable feedback sandwich : 

• CONTEXT: At such and such a time...
• OBSERVATION: I have observed that...
• IMPACT: It's important because...
• NEXT STEP: What do you think? How can I help you?

4. Prepare your annual interview guide

Once your vision of success, your messages and suggestions for development are ready, you can move on to preparing your interview outline. This is a guide that will be the common thread running through your discussions with your employee on the day of the annual performance review, as well as the evaluation grid. You can also formalize it on a document to be shared with your colleague before the appraisal interview, so that you both have the same basis for discussion.

At NUMA, we recommend structuring your annual interview guide into 6 main sections:

1. The overall assessment: This is a clear message that helps the employee project his or her next 6/12 months with the company, in line with your vision of success. Some examples: "To date, you're not delivering and that's a problem" "You've had a great year, I'm really pleased" "You're on the right track, but I've got some big feedback I'd like us to work on during our interview".

2. The employee's main achievements of the year: 1 to 2 real accomplishments. Use feedback from peers if you need it, to help you make the case for key points (positive or negative). For example: "His analytical skills really struck me on this sequence".

3. The employee's #1 strength: This is what differentiates the employee and must be encouraged.

4. Its 2 major development areas: These are the 2 key points to be developed, either on which we don't have the solution (behaviors, soft...) and on which we're going to start a conversation; or the things that put a strain on performance and which we know we can do something about.

When formulating the actions to be taken to help employees improve in their areas of development, be creative!

• Propose a clear idea / actionable solution if you have it. Example: change certain rituals (change the way 1:1s work, new opportunities for collaboration with other departments, etc.).
• Dig deeper with the employee, explicitly proposing a coaching approach (list your questions in advance).

5. Collaboration with the manager: Formulate a feedback request focused on collaboration and continuous improvement.

6. Medium- and long-term projections : Share your medium- and long-term perspectives, but don't make promises that commit you. If you have a "flat" organization or little visibility, focus on the skills you need to acquire.

Download our annual maintenance template at the end of the article!

5. Preparing questions for the annual appraisal interview

Have you ever had that annual appraisal interview where, once the review and feedback are over, you've got nothing left to talk about and the interview ends on a rather embarrassing note?

To avoid this situation, we recommend that you prepare a list of questions to ask your employee before the annual performance review. The aim? Get your employee to share their thoughts/feelings following feedback, get them to talk about the past year, or get them to verbalize what they would like to see in the coming year.

These questions will also make it easier for you to guide the appraisal interview.

For easy cases, you can ask your questions once you've unfolded your framework to provoke an exchange based on it. For more complex cases, get the person to talk first, then ask your questions to get them to clarify what they're saying and get the conversation going in a more natural way, before unfolding your framework.

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Annual appraisal interviews are important moments for managers and employees alike. To make the most of this opportunity to look back over the year, our responsibility as managers is to guide our teams in preparing for the interview, specifying what is expected and when, with the help of a template for example.