Best practices for Best-Self Review®

Are you new to the Best-Self Review®? Or are you looking to make more out of your upcoming review cycle? These best practices will help set you and your team up for success!

Best practices for review cycles

1. Manage review admins: Who needs to be able to have access to see all reviews? And who will be the primary person in charge of setting up review cycles and questions?  For some teams this may be the CEO; for other teams, this may be the head of HR. Make sure you give the right people review admin permissions.
2. Add review viewers for participants: The review viewer permission allows you to grant people read-only visibility into a participant's review results who wouldn't otherwise have this visibility. This is a common ask for people with a dotted line manager or for a participant who has recently had a manager change and that new manager needs insight into recent cycles. Review administrators can add a review viewer for viewing purposes via the 'Edit individual settings' page for any participant. This option is available for any current or past review cycle.
3. Ask reflective and forward-thinking questions: Research shows that asking growth and development-focused questions improves performance and aligns the team members with company objectives.
4. Company values assessment: If your company adheres to company values you will need to customize this setting when creating your Question template. Adding values to your review process allows your team members to focus on the primary objectives of the company and the culture they wish to maintain.
5. Competency assessment: This assessment is a research-backed approach to gauge an individual’s skills and behaviors that drive performance. It gives employees and managers the ability to objectively and more holistically measure performance over time, identify skills and perception gaps, and enhances transparency in the review process.
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   Tip

   The Private Manager Assessment section of the manager review works to reduce the idiosyncratic rater bias. Adam Grant recommends companies triangulate the Private Manager Assessment (the Deloitte questions in the default self+manager template) with as many objective measures of both results and behaviors as possible. Resources for Your Review (which includes past 15Fives, Objectives, etc...) help to ensure the Private Manager Assessment is triangulated with as many Objective results as possible. The Competency Assessment helps to ensure the Private Manager Assessment is triangulated with as many behaviors as possible. This process (the private manager assessment triangulated with both results and behaviors) helps to ensure a more objective and fair review.

6. Setup your deadlines for review submissions: By default, we suggest that the self-review be performed first, then the manager review. This allows the manager time to review the self-review submissions and focus on their responses before sharing the results with the team member. While the deadlines are soft and allow for submissions up until the cycle is locked by a review admin or cycle collaborator, the dates can also be edited after the cycle has already begun.
7. Share results: When a manager shares results with their direct reports it allows both parties to see each other's responses. Sharing is followed by a meeting to go over them and compare the responses. 
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   Tip

   15Five suggests that managers ask their team members what they would prefer: to review the results prior to the live meeting or to review the results together in the live meeting. If they would like to review the results prior to the live meeting, share the Best Self Review with them beforehand. Encourage them to read the results in advance and come to the meeting ready to talk about the feedback. If they prefer to go over the results together in the live meeting, share your screen during the live meeting and share the results when the meeting is complete.