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It’s Performance Excellence Time – Tips to Help You Prepare

It’s that time of year when we prepare to tout our successes, evaluate the near misses, and set aspirations for future goals through the Performance Excellence process. If the thought of your upcoming performance review has you tossing and turning at night, take heart. Continue reading for tips to help you prepare.

Review Timeline

Human Resources (HR) designates May as the time to begin the performance evaluation process for the University. Your supervisor will contact you to schedule a date and time for your performance review. PEX graphicAs part of the process, you will need to complete and submit your self-review in myHR Learn. Your supervisor will also work on completing your review and assigning a rating. Finally, you will meet with your supervisor to discuss your review and rating.

Setting Goals

During your review, you and your supervisor will review your goals. While you may have some ongoing goals, it’s a good idea to come prepared with a few new SIMple goals for the coming year. Northwestern uses SIMple goals (Specific Important, Measurable), which are like SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) but include personal meaning and motivation. Below are a few examples of SIMple goals offered by HR.

  • I will work to enhance the program's visibility and reputation by revising and improving the social media plan and activity, increasing traffic to the program website by 25 percent.
  • Interact with community members as an ambassador of the University. Answer questions and provide directions in a way that conveys caring and professionalism.
  • Design and implement a new report that solves a departmental need that is currently unmet. This report will provide insight to support better decisions or better management.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Goals

Along with your SIMple goals, it is the expectation for every Northwestern IT employee to establish a goal pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Whether your goal is about a specific activity or refers to general awareness, it should offer an example of how you participated in cultivating a work culture that helps you and others do their best work and deliver solutions that meet our stakeholders’ needs. Examples of DEI goals are listed below 

DEI Goals (General)

  • "Actively participate in at least one Northwestern IT DEI program." These activities are planned and hosted by Northwestern IT colleagues, so you’ll be learning about topics you might not have considered exploring on your own and getting to know colleagues in new ways.
  • If you have direct reports, maybe your goal is expanding your knowledge about training/resources, so you can: “Ensure all staff attend at least one training or engagement that broadens their DEI knowledge base and experience.” With more knowledge about resources, you can help team members craft goals that matter to them personally.

DEI Goals (Specific)

  • Perhaps you want to understand how to practice more inclusive communication strategies, so you set a goal to, "Complete training (or read a book) about different communication styles and identify specific practices you can use to create more inclusive meetings."
  • Creating inclusive user experiences happens best when we understand user experiences; learn more about common assistive technologies that students, faculty, and staff might use and how to proactively communicate about these features with a goal like this: "Identify at least one accessibility feature and share learning with members of my team." If you can communicate directly with users, you could include user communication in your goal, too.
  • If you have direct reports, perhaps you want to learn more about how women, men, and gender non-conforming professionals frequently are not similarly praised for the same behaviors, so you can be aware of common biases that exist and limit unconscious bias in performance conversations.

To learn more about IT’s departmental approach and links to institutional DEI resources, visit the Northwestern IT Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion web page.

Writing a Self-Review

Writing a self-review can feel daunting, but HR has tools to help you through it. Watch the step-by-step video tutorial for navigating the myHR Learn self-review submission process. You can also download the video’s companion piece, Guidance for self-review summary content, with tips to help you confirm, gather, reflect, and document information when writing your year-end self-review.

Preparing for the Year-End Conversation

Your supervisor will set up a meeting for a REAL year-end conversation. This will give the two of you the chance to Reflect, Empathize, Ask questions, and Look ahead. myHR Learn offers an interactive REAL Conversation Planner to help plan your performance conversation with tips for giving and receiving feedback.

Additional Resources

HR provides many how-to guides and video tutorials to help guide you along the way. Please visit the myHR Learn website for more information.