During your onboarding or hiring process, you tell every new employee their roles and responsibilities. From their hours on the job and customer interactions to CSI survey averages and interdepartmental relationships, you set out clear guidelines for how their fixed operations job is to be done right. And you probably rounded out the talk with, “We’ll review your performance after a year to see how you’re doing.”

From personal experience, that year timeline comes and goes without a glimmer of hope that management remembers a work anniversary. And then another year. And another.

The only time fixed ops managers seem to find time for performance reviews is when there are major problems to repair. And by that time, the damage has been done. The “shape up or ship out” ultimatum has to be issued, and the odds of a long-term solution are pretty small.

The other side of the coin is the micro-manager, constantly trying to control every aspect of the day down to the color of underwear. When performance reviews are due, there’s nothing to discuss because it’s all been said a hundred times before.

So how do you deal with performance reviews in fixed operations?

You’ve said performance reviews are at a set interval (such as annual), so stick with it. I can only tell you from experience, that guidance you provide during the review is welcome and necessary.

A while ago, I wrote an article elsewhere about service advisors going ‘rogue’. It was all about me. Without the guidelines enforced, and with performance reviews only coming about when scathing corrections were required, I lost direction. I set my own course and did my own thing, leading to punishing CSI scores and customer complaints. But I didn’t care because it didn’t appear my management cared.

Do I think that performance reviews would have fixed the problems? Maybe. Could management have made changes that better served their clientele by reviewing my performance with me? Absolutely. Would that have meant showing me the door? Possibly.

Look, I know everyone colors outside the lines sometimes – human nature and all that jazz. Performance reviews simply make sure everyone is drawing the same landscape. So if you say you’re going to perform annual checkups, do it.

What should a performance review look like?

This is very much a decision to make at the store level. That’s going to change depending on the team member’s role, but it should be consistent. Here are a couple suggestions:

• Create a checklist for each job description in your department. If you need ideas, search the Microsoft Office templates or online for a structure that works for you. Adapt the checklist for roles and duties of each position.
• Create a schedule for performance reviews. Do you want to handle your whole department’s reviews in a single week or deal with them around each team member’s work anniversary? Develop that framework and stick with it from year to year.
• Refer back to the previous year’s review and compare with the current progress. Identify items that need improvement and things that are being done exceptionally well.
• Set goals for the coming year. Isolate one to three items that the employee can improve on, or professional development goals to accomplish in the next twelve months.
• Be truthful. If there are shortcomings, identify them clearly with specific examples. It’s a great time to bring up small issues that weren’t critical enough to haul them into the office for earlier. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to reinforce the roles your employee does really well.

For me, goal-setting was probably my biggest issue. I lost sight of what I was working toward. I wasn’t really sure what the future had in store, and my roles and responsibilities became unclear. While I’m far from perfect in other aspects of professional life, I think a performance review with defined goals for the next 12 months would have benefited me.

I have a hard time believing that mine is an isolated experience. In 15 years, I don’t believe I ever had more than 3 performance reviews cumulatively, in any role, spanning three long tenures at different dealerships.

Prove me wrong. Do you have a clear and defined performance review system that works well for you? Are there fixed ops directors for dealer groups that can honestly say their stores do it well? And who will admit it’s an area they need to work on?