Performance Reviews Are Back. Are You Ready?

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WSJ Your Money Briefing 8 min 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

ReliaQuest Advertiser 0:00
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J.R. Whalen 0:30
Here's your money briefing for Thursday, September 22nd. I'm J.R.

Why are performance reviews returning as employees come back to the office?

J.R. Whalen 0:39
Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. After two and a half years of working from home, more and more people are returning to their desks at the office. And as people and their bosses collaborate in person, performance reviews are also making a return.
Catherine Dill 0:52
There's always sort of a general sense of, oh, man, you know, it's time to go in and face the music. But there's also a sense that workers appreciate, you know, a lot of them have really been putting in serious hours, facing serious challenges. And now they have the opportunity to talk about that in a sort of dedicated way.
J.R. Whalen 1:12
But as the workplace has evolved in the post-pandemic era, are traditional performance reviews still relevant? And how should workers prepare for that meeting with the boss? We'll ask our workplace reporter Catherine Dill about that after the break.
ReliaQuest Advertiser 1:24
This podcast is brought to you by ReliaQuest. Cyber criminals are constantly attacking. They want your data.

Why were many companies suspending performance reviews during the pandemic?

ReliaQuest Advertiser 1:30
They want your identity. They want your innovation. ReliaQuest fortifies your business with agentic defense, AI that detects, contains, and eliminates cyber threats in minutes. It helps your security team move faster at the work that matters most to protect the business now and delivers insights to help them predict what's next. ReliaQuest, agentic defense for the enterprise. Learn more at ReliaQuest.com. That's R-E-L-I-A-Q-U-E-S-T.com.
J.R. Whalen 2:02
As more workers return to the office, many companies are reinstating performance reviews on their employees' calendars. So how should workers prepare for this meeting with the boss that in many cases hasn't happened since before the pandemic? WSJ Workplace reporter Catherine Dill joins us with more. Hey, Catherine, thanks very much for being with us.
Catherine Dill 2:19
My pleasure.

What reasons are companies giving for reinstating formal performance reviews now?

J.R. Whalen 2:20
So, you know, Catherine, given the significance of performance reviews regarding a worker's career track, why were they suspended by a lot of companies over the past several years?
Catherine Dill 2:28
For a lot of companies, it seemed like they were looking for things to take off of people's to-do lists during the real triage of the pandemic. And so for workers, it hardly seemed fair when people were, in some cases, putting in 12-hour days at work from their kitchen table, also overseeing virtual school for their kids and facing this real cascade of challenges. to also sit down and, you know, rank them on a five-point scale. And they were also looking for ways to free up manager time for, again, facing down some of these crises. And so it served a couple of functions to just put these on hold for a little while.
J.R. Whalen 3:05
Yeah, some people might have liked to have been ranked based on their skill of getting dinner ready for the kids, you know, while they're on a conference call.
Catherine Dill 3:11
Right, exactly. Yeah, can you rank me on keeping my dog out of the frame?
J.R. Whalen 3:15
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So why are performance reviews making a comeback now?

How are employees reacting to the comeback of performance reviews?

Catherine Dill 3:21
You know, for many companies, you know, we saw them start to bring these back in 2021, really bring them back in force this year. And for a lot of them, you know, there's this urge to return to quote unquote normal. And part of that is, you know, using these to create growth and development for workers, to create transparency and around things like compensation and promotions. And, you know, in some cases, we see companies who are bracing for, you know, some economic headwinds. And so there's this climate that, you know, we need to, in some cases, return to really doing these strong assessments on a regular basis.

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