Three Important Tips for Conducting Performance Reviews With Your High Achievers

Constructive performance reviews with high-achieving employees are possible with three methods, reports Forbes . The first is to assign challenging goals to high performers, with goal difficulty characterized by the need to learn new skills, take employees out of their comfort zones, and have a level of difficulty that is at least equal to workers' most significant previous accomplishments. Performance reviews should devote more attention to goal-setting. The second technique is to provide hyper-specific feedback, to raise the odds that employees will know which of their behaviors the employer wants to see repeated in the future. The third strategy is to encourage a more meritocratic atmosphere that welcomes friendly competition, values creativity and intelligence, and where the best performance wins regardless of status or tenure. The performance review scores of high-achieving employees should thus reflect that achievement.