Request a call Login

  • Amidst the shifting dynamics of modern workplaces, fostering employee engagement stands as a cornerstone of organizational success. Engaged employees aren’t just contributors; they drive innovation, productivity, and positive company culture. The significance of nurturing engagement through quarterly check-ins cannot be overstated.

    Studies show 81% of employees feel they should receive feedback at least quarterly via check-ins with their manager. These structured sessions serve as valuable touchpoints between employees and managers, igniting a cycle of empowerment, growth, and heightened commitment.

    Cultivating Meaningful Connections

    Quarterly check-ins transcend the quick nature of routine meetings. They carve out dedicated time for meaningful conversations beyond day-to-day tasks. This structured approach allows employees and managers to delve deeper into accomplishments, challenges, aspirations, and personal development goals. The resulting connection builds trust and rapport, which fosters a sense of belonging and appreciation within the team.

    GMS’ HR Account Manager Danielle Zielaskiewicz, added, “When managers meet frequently with their employees, it allows for a more accurate measurement of employee performance. Regular touch bases can also establish a good rapport between managers and employees, acting as a temperature check to ensure employee engagement with the company.”

    Clarity In Expectations And Goals

    Crystal-clear communication forms the backbone of any successful professional relationship. Quarterly check-ins offer a platform to align expectations and set realistic, achievable goals. Through open dialogue, employees gain a deeper understanding of their roles within the organization’s larger vision. This clarity minimizes ambiguity, reducing stress and enhancing focus on strategic objectives.

    Continuous Feedback For Growth

    Frequent, ongoing feedback loops are rapidly replacing the traditional annual performance review model. Quarterly check-ins provide a moment for constructive feedback, enabling real-time course corrections and acknowledging accomplishments promptly. In addition, companies that provide regular feedback report 14.9% lower turnover rates than those who don’t provide feedback at all. This timely feedback loop is pivotal for continuous improvement, skill enhancement, and professional development.

    Enhanced Employee Engagement And Retention

    Engaged employees are more committed, productive, and invested in the organization’s success. Companies create a culture of inclusivity and appreciation by actively involving employees in these structured discussions. Feeling valued and heard, employees become more motivated to contribute their best, ultimately reducing turnover rates and bolstering retention.

    Driving Personal And Professional Growth

    Individual growth is intertwined with organizational success. Quarterly check-ins facilitate discussions on career aspirations, skill development, and training needs. This focus on personal and professional growth benefits the employee and aligns individual ambitions with the company’s objectives, ensuring a win-win scenario.

    Empowerment Through Connection

    In essence, formal quarterly check-ins transcend mere scheduled meetings; they represent a commitment to employee empowerment and engagement. These intentional interactions create a culture of open communication, trust, and collaboration. However, we understand that implementing these check-ins can’t be done in the blink of an eye. That’s where GMS, a professional employer organization (PEO), comes in to help.

    GMS’ HR experts provide business owners with support in streamlining HR processes, providing frameworks and guidance to integrate these check-ins into your business seamlessly. With our expertise in managing HR intricacies, GMS ensures these interactions become a seamless part of your company’s culture, creating an environment where employee engagement thrives organically. When you partner with GMS, you can elevate your approach to employee engagement, harnessing the power of structured interactions to drive success and growth within your organization. Interested in learning more? Contact us today.

  • As year-end approaches, it’s vital to start thinking about how you will tackle 2024. With your employees being your biggest asset, supporting their success should always be a priority. Investing in your team starts with your employee onboarding process.

    Implementing an onboarding program can be challenging, especially if you’re building one from scratch. However, it’s well worth the time and energy, as 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for at least three years if they have a positive onboarding experience. Hiring is a lengthy and costly process that places a strain on your existing team, which may be stretched thin due to staff shortages. This strain puts pressure on your hiring team to fill the role(s), which can lead to a rushed hiring process and potential bad hires, costing your business in the long run.

    Taking the time to build a thorough and effective onboarding process can help with your attrition rates, boost morale, and increase engagement rates. Constructing a roadmap for at least the first three months can help your employees get acclimated to the company culture and their job responsibilities to set them up for success.

    The Importance Of 30-60-90-Day Reviews

    A 30-60-90 day plan is a set of objectives for new employees to achieve in their first 30, 60, and 90 days on the job. It entails the high-level priorities, actionable goals, and metrics you’ll use to measure success in those first three months. This plan aims to make the transition into the new role easier and gives your employees a sense of direction in a confusing and stressful time. In addition, it allows managers to set expectations and monitor progress during the first few months. In summary, the benefits of a 30-60-90 plan include:

    • Help optimize productivity
    • Set clear expectations 
    • Assist with goal-setting
    • Alleviate the new job nerves
    • Empower employees to self-manage their work
    • Serve as a reminder of priorities

    GMS’ Director of Human Resources Lisa Dassani shares, “30-60-90-day reviews allow employees to reflect on their first 90 days and give them a chance to ask questions about their position. Managers may use this time to clarify expectations and learn about the training needs of each employee. These check-ins help to set the employee up for future success at your company.”

    How To Structure Performance Reviews

    Each performance review should have clearly defined objectives communicated to your staff in advance. During the review process, fostering collaboration rather than a one-sided conversation is essential. To achieve this, you and your team should prepare a short list of questions to facilitate a constructive dialogue.

    Furthermore, your company should place a strong emphasis on reflection and future goal setting during these reviews. You should understand that employees may feel anxious about each review, as it often serves as their probationary period. Assure them that expecting them to operate at 100% capacity from day one is unrealistic. Instead, focus on providing constructive feedback regarding areas for improvement while emphasizing that the first three months are primarily about learning the role and becoming acclimated to the organizational culture.

    How To Create A 30-60-90 Plan

    If you currently conduct 30-60-90-day plans for your employees, great! By following the steps below, you can ensure that you’ve taken every possible measure to provide an efficient onboarding process. However, if your business has not yet implemented a 30-60-90 plan, use the following tips to guide you in creating your plan:

    1. Clarify short and long-term priorities

    The first step determines the expectations of your new hire. What do they have to accomplish in each phase? What will you do as their manager to help them succeed? Completing this step as early as possible is essential to set your team up for success.

    2. Set an objective for each phase

    There are three stages: the first 30 days, days 31 to 60, and days 61 to 90. The first 30 days are all about learning — which is typically very intensive and hands-on. This is the phase where you introduce the new hires to tools and projects and set small goals for them to achieve.

    The second phase focuses more on role-specific duties and eases off training. This is when your employees take on more responsibilities and implement what they learned in the first phase.

    The final stage is when employees gain more independence in their roles. As their manager, you hold them accountable for their work and encourage them to accomplish projects with limited guidance from you. Employees should be able to take what they’ve learned in the first two phases and apply it to their work.

    3. Fill in the details

    Once the main objectives are in place, and your new hire understands what they need to do within their first 90 days, determine how they will achieve these objectives. Work with your staff to create SMART goals. At each review, assess their progress and help make adjustments as needed. Offer guidance and connect them with more experienced peers to assist in their growth.

    You want your employees to succeed from the start because it not only makes you look like a suitable leader but also helps your business succeed. Creating a thorough onboarding process that includes a 30-60-90-day review allows your employees to understand their progress and integration. It also allows you to ensure each new team member is a positive addition to your staff. This structured approach not only facilitates smoother transitions for new hires but also enhances the likelihood of retaining and nurturing excellent talent, which is pivotal for your company’s growth and success.

    Get Started Today!

    As HR professionals at GMS, we understand how challenging it is to create an efficient onboarding process that benefits you and your new hires. Performance management allows you to set clear goals and expectations for each employee and provide feedback about their performance related to those goals. Furthermore, it plays a pivotal role in shaping decisions related to identifying training requirements for your team, recognizing team members deserving of promotions, and addressing any necessary personnel actions, including terminations when warranted.

    Performance management is also valuable to your employees as it can offer opportunities for them to grow within your organization and advance their careers. GMS’ performance review system provides:

    • Consistent feedback 
    • Employee development
    • Goal setting
    • Tracking and documentation 
    • Reporting
    • Customizable email templates and calendar invitations 
    • Training, implementation, and more

    Contact us today to get started!

  • We are all aware of performance views by now and what they entail. Your organization’s goals, team members’ development, and the leader themselves are all fair game in an effective review. But your organization is constantly growing, changing, and evolving — it’s not practical to create the same plan every 90 or 60 days. As a leader, how can you help others succeed and develop while impacting the culture of your organization?

    Review planning is often overlooked in organizations as leaders, managers, and supervisors are busy focusing on the work that’s most essential to their success. It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, ongoing review planning for your leaders is essential to organizational productivity and growth. When you implement an investment plan for reviewing your leaders’ future potential, you will see a positive impact on your team’s efficiency and performance throughout the organization.

    What Is A Review Plan?

    According to recent findings from a study conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership, 88% of leaders fail in their first 18 months. That’s a scary statistic and should be enough to convince most leaders that before they assume their new roles, they need a structured review plan.

    Review plans help new leaders in your organization understand what behaviors you want them to achieve and how you want them to achieve them. By writing out a review plan, you can help:

    • Give clear expectations upfront
    • Ensure all employees are reviewed consistently 
    • Ensure that your review plan includes all the key areas of a performance review

    What To Cover In Review Plans

    I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” That is especially true in the business world. Review plans guide leaders and managers through the critical process of providing feedback to employees on their job performance and accomplishments. Feedback, setting goals, and providing resources are all key to creating an effective leader. But what does an effective review plan even look like? What should get covered?

    It’s a good practice to establish a formal, documented plan for conducting performance reviews for both supervisory and non-supervisory employees. It can be beneficial for managers and employees to have a standard process with set timelines and expectations. The following are key characteristics of a solid review plan:

    • Document it: A review should be well-documented whether you use current software or create your own filing system. This makes it easy to look back on in the future and assess growth and development.
    • Set a timeline: Reviews don’t have to be an annual thing. When bringing on new hires, 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day reviews can be crucial to the success and onboarding of an employee. This allows them to present challenges or discuss expectations. After that, feel free to switch to a six-month or annual review cadence. 
    • Create room for discussion: Apart from anything, a review should be a time to have a safe and honest discussion. This creates a space where the employee can ask questions and bring up circumstances that they can learn from. 
    • Allow feedback: Some companies opt for peer reviewing for reviews, and others choose to have higher-ups give the feedback. Whatever you choose, make sure it fits your company culture and the goals you hope to reach through a solid review plan. If you opt for peer review, make sure it’s anonymous.
    • Set goals: Reviews are an ideal time to set goals to reach by the next review. Perhaps this employee wants to become a manager or learn a new skill. Whatever these goals might be, discuss them honestly and plan to have follow-up discussions to check in on progress.
    • Express needs: Whether you have requests for this employee or they have requests for you, a review allows space to make those needs known. Perhaps they need a better workspace or want to change their schedule. Creating room to speak about these things only leads to a better work culture.
    • Discuss accomplishments and challenges: Lastly, talk about wins and fails. It’s ok not to have it all figured out, and as humans, we all make mistakes. What’s important is that we learn from them while also remembering to celebrate our accomplishments.

    Everyone wants to be a better leader, and review plans certainly help. It’s not an easy role, and it takes time, practice, and discipline. That’s why most leaders will have mentors, coaches, and other resources they can lean on during this time of growth. One of the best ways to do this is by going a step beyond and creating a leadership development program.

    What Is A Leadership Development Program?

    There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all leadership development program. Effective and productive leadership development programs are designed according to the individual needs of each leader in your organization. However, it can be helpful to structure your leader training sessions with a well-thought-out structured approach.

    Leadership development programs cover everything from goals, performance reviews, professional growth and development, ratings, learning opportunities, check-ins, and more. It gives leadership a tangible way to assess how they’re doing and what they could improve while also consistently learning.

    Why Should You Create A Leadership Development Program?

    With the right tools, your leadership development program can help you change or refine your approach to leadership roles. It can also provide a framework for building a personal brand within the company. Creating a leadership development program will give your employees the tools they need to succeed and an opportunity to feel seen and heard.

    These programs also give peers the opportunity to review each other anonymously, which creates a judgment-free and honest work environment. This feedback can be instrumental in setting communication goals and strengthening work relationships. Some of the benefits of leadership development programs are that it:

    • Sharpens everyone’s communication skills so that individuals have a better understanding of how to work as a team, boosting teamwork, and collaboration
    • Helps guide a business toward success and growth opportunities 
    • Helps manage change and demonstrates what adaptability looks like
    • Demonstrates confidence and authority in project leadership
    • Promotes an educating, empowering, and encouraging company culture
    • Helps with employee retention

    How To Create A Leadership Development Program

    There is not a one-size-fits-all to a good leadership development plan. However, there are several methods you can use when building one out. It’s important to ask yourself what you want to gain from it. Here are some questions to consider:

    • What does our leadership currently look like? 
    • What are common problems we’d like to solve?
    • Do our leaders feel set up for success?
    • Do we have a culture of feedback and transparency?

    Once you’ve asked yourself these questions, now it’s time to develop a program. It’s critical to remember that, as a leader, your role is to develop future leaders in the organization. All new hires will eventually join your team as managers, so this program can be used for any employee, regardless of their title. Leadership development methods can include:

    • Leadership workshops: This is the most common way of going through leadership training, focusing on one topic at a time. Workshops usually involve hands-on activities or example scenarios. This gives a real-life approach to situations.
    • Leadership seminars: Seminars are for larger groups of people and offer an interactive way for teams to learn together and network with other professionals.
    • Online courses: If you’re looking to learn at your own pace, an online leadership course can be a great option. Not only does this work great for being a better manager, but they also are handy in learning or brushing up on new skills.
    • Leadership conferences: Conferences help those already in leadership positions strengthen existing skills. It’s also a great opportunity to learn from other great leaders and share that knowledge.
    • Review plans: While we already covered this, review plans are a huge part of a healthy leadership development plan. Without reviews, it’s difficult to determine what needs improvement and what you’re doing well.
    • Consistent coaching and one-on-ones: You already have great leaders within your organization. Having your current employees shadow them and meet with them creates an environment of coaching. Consistent one-on-ones with managers allow leaders to create ongoing goals and opportunities to ask for advice.

    Putting Leadership Development Into Practice

    You might be thinking to yourself, “This all sounds like a lot of work.” And it is. However, if you want to retain good quality leaders, investing in them is key. Leadership development isn’t just extra tasks and things to do – it’s a culture. To truly put this into practice, you must create an environment that is development friendly. You can do this by:

    • Setting expectations: Let current employees know that this is happening. Meet with them to introduce them to this new program and how review plans work. This is a time when they can ask questions.
    • Enforce this plan: A plan only works if people are filling out the reviews and attending the one-on-ones. While things happen and meetings may need moved, be sure to follow up and express the importance of the leadership development plan.
    • Incorporate it into your onboarding: When onboarding new leadership, enforce and discuss this program from the start. Inform them of your review cycles and create training resources that are focused on development.

    Your company will benefit greatly from putting leadership and feedback at the forefront. Doing so weeds out leaders who may not be a good fit for your company and rewards leaders who do a great job. Not only that, but this plan can build up those qualities in all of your employees, which means better work and happier employees.

    Create Leadership Programs And Review Plans With Ease

    Review plans allow you the opportunity to grow leaders and talent in your organization but creating and managing them can be daunting. Recruiting, hiring, and training staff is time-consuming and costly. See how GMS can assist with training and recruiting for your company by reaching out today! Contact us to learn more.