Performance reviews help you grow. They provide a time for you to reflect on your achievements, highlight your areas of focus and set the goals that will take your career to the next level.

They provide a time for you to reflect on your achievements, highlight your areas of focus and set the goals that will take your career to the next level.

But if you’re new to the world of performance reviews, there may be some lingo you’re unfamiliar with. To help you with that we’ve compiled an A-Z of all things performance reviews:

A: Appraisal. A performance appraisal is the same thing as a performance review, they are interchangeable terms.

B: Bottom line. It’s all about identifying strengths and weaknesses so that both you and your employer can get more out of you in the next 12 months.

C: Constructive feedback. This type of feedback is highly specific, information-based and focused on an event or observation. Constructive feedback can guide you to higher performance. 

D: Development. Personal progression and development is key to performance reviews.

E: Email. New SEEK research found that 65% of Australians who had performance reviews did a self-assessment and of those 53% did so via email or verbal feedback.

F: Future. Your performance review isn’t just about looking back. It’s about what both you and your employer want to achieve in the next 3, 6 or 12 months.

G: Goals. Goal-setting should either be a part of the performance review or follow shortly afterwards once both sides have had time to reflect.

H: Helpful. If you expect the process to be helpful you will have a more open conversation with your manager and a better outcome.

I: Informal feedback. Performance reviews come in different shapes and sizes. In fact, of all Australians who had performance reviews, 34% were informal, 32% were formal and the other 34% were a combination of both.

J: Journaling. Keep a journal of key activities you have been involved in during the year.

K: KPIs. Key performance indicators or more commonly known as KPIs. These are the metrics that have been assigned to your role to assess your performance.

L: List.  Have a list of all of your achievements, topics you want to discuss and potential outcomes from your review. Your performance review can also be a good opportunity to have a difficult conversation with your boss about issues or concerns that are troubling you at work.

M: Milestones. Performance reviews should cover all the milestones of the last year, not just recent events.

N: New Projects. Identify projects that you could work on. This both shows your motivation, but also gives you goals that will lead to your own self-development.

O: Objectives. 48% of Aussies who had performance reviews said that it would help inform their future goals and objectives

P: Performance. It’s what the review is all about. Performance is a measure of your completion of tasks against the relevant standards in your organisation.

Q: Qualifications. Think about your training and development needs and what qualifications you could be working towards.

R: Reward and Recognition. We found that 66% of you look forward to your performance review. For many, this is because performance reviews can lead to reward and recognition and can be effective motivators.

S: SMART goals. A goal setting technique designed to help businesses and individuals be more successful. SMART goals are specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time-based.

T: 360-degree feedback. 360-degree performance reviews include self-evaluation as well as feedback from an employee's subordinates, colleagues, and supervisors.

U: Update your resume. Performance reviews encourage you to reflect on and document your achievements in your role. With this current information now at hand, it’s the perfect time to update your resume and SEEK Profile.

V: Value. 92% of Australians agreed with the statement ‘I generally see value in getting feedback on my performance at work’.

W: Worth. Understand what you are worth by checking out similar roles on SEEK.

X: Xerox. Bring photocopies of all relevant documents to give to your manager.

Y: Yearly. When looking at frequency of formal appraisals, the majority (68%) did them either yearly (34%) or half-yearly (34%). 

Z: Zoom. Your performance review is the time to zoom in on you; what you’ve achieved and what you plan to achieve in the coming year.

Now that you’re set with all the lingo you need for your next performance appraisal, it’s time to get performance review ready. Click here to learn more.

Source: Independent research conducted by Survey Sampling International (SSI) on behalf of SEEK. May 2017.