Six Months and Beyond: Acknowledging Milestones
The 6-month mark is a significant milestone for new employees. As their supervisor, it’s crucial to celebrate their progress and discuss their performance. Open communication fosters employee retention and helps them envision a future within the organization.
Structured Performance Conversations
Structure the 6-month performance conversation in three steps:
Step 1: General Questions & Clarification
- Discuss major accomplishments and achieved goals
- Identify strengths, areas for growth, and address job-related queries
Step 2: Key Employee Attributes
Evaluate knowledge, responsiveness, teamwork, attendance, initiative, and capacity to develop.
Step 3: In-Depth Discussion of Higher-Level Skills
Assess functional knowledge, trust-building, effective communications, problem-solving, and results delivery
Prior to the meeting, share these questions with your employee:
- Accomplishments: What major tasks and goals were achieved in the past 6 months?
- Strengths and Opportunities for Growth: Identify employee strengths and areas for development.
- Clarification: Address job responsibilities and company policies.
- Optional: Quantity and Quality of Work: Assess work completion and quality.
Select 1-2 relevant attributes for discussion:
- Knowledge of the Job: Evaluate expertise and areas needing improvement.
- Relations with Supervisor and Co-workers: Assess responsiveness, teamwork, and communication skills.
- Attendance, Initiative, and Capacity to Develop: Evaluate attendance, proactiveness, and willingness to learn.
Discuss 1-2 applicable skills:
- Possesses Functional Knowledge and Skills: Evaluate expertise, training needs, and contributions to best practices.
- Building Trust: Assess honesty, reliability, prioritization, and commitment to organizational goals.
- Effectively Communicating: Evaluate listening, influencing, adaptability, and stakeholder communication.
- Collaborative/Customer Service Focus: Assess respect, approachability, teamwork, and openness to ideas.
- Solving Problems/Taking Initiative: Evaluate problem-solving skills, decision-making, proactivity, and root cause analysis.
- Delivering Results: Assess task management, receptiveness to feedback, self-improvement, and leadership accountability (if applicable).
Resources
The “What’s Next” resource includes a plethora of topics and questions to assist with your regular and ongoing performance conversations.