Employee-Initiated Reviews

Encouraging open communication and motivating employees through employee-initiated reviews.

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"Millions of people who run companies know they should be conducting annual employee appraisals, but they're not doing it," asserts Roger Flax, president of Motivational Systems, a West Orange, N.J., management- and sales-training company. "There's a lot of assuming that in small companies people are motivated, so there's not a lot of formal motivating," he says.

One answer may be the employee-initiated appraisal, in which employees are told they can ask for a review from their manager. The on-demand appraisal isn't meant to replace a conventional semiannual review, but it promotes an attitude of self-management among workers and often makes critiques more honest. Edward Silverman, president of SOS Security Inc., a Parsippany, N.J., security-guard company with $25 million in sales, says the employee-initiated appraisal "encourages an open-door policy" at his company.

Flax suggests employees ask for as many reviews as they feel they need. Here are the seven questions he instructs employees to ask in their self-initiated appraisals:

1. Can you rate my performance from one to 10?

2. What do you feel are the strongest elements of my work?

3. What are the weakest elements?

4. Why didn't I get a 10 (highest rating)?

5. Where do you think I can go in my job or career in the next 18 months to four years?

6. What skills, training, or education do I need to get to that point?

7. What specifically can we agree on that I can do, beginning tomorrow? -- Ellyn E. Spragins

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