Does your stomach sink at the thought of getting through your annual performance appraisal? Well, you may soon be in for relief.

In December 2015, the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology announced the top ten work place trends for 2016. Coming in at number four, according to more than 700 members of the organization, is the changing nature of performance management and development.

“More and more organizations are changing the way they approach performance management, moving from forced distributions and ranking systems to processes focused on continuous improvement that truly fosters the development of employees, rather than competition between them,” they predicted. “Performance management is no longer an event-driven process where conversations are held once or twice a year, but is becoming an ongoing conversation between manager and employee that encourages performance development.”

What's driving the change? Janelle Brittain, a performance management consultant, trainer and speaker, believes there are three main drivers.   

“We have the most educated workforce ever; therefore, they have the highest expectations,” she said. “There is low unemployment so people can change jobs whenever they want to. And, the younger generation expects to be more empowered and have their ideas listened to.”

But this change won’t happen overnight and it won’t be perfect, considering the facts that form-focused evaluators tend to have a ‘let’s-get-it-done-put-it-in-the-file-and-get-back-to-work’ attitude. And, even if people-focused, not all evaluators have great conversation skills.

So, whether you are subjected to form-focused performance reviews or treated to people-focused ones, take control of the conversation so you can have the best outcomes.

Brittain, co-author of How to Say It: Performance Reviews. Phrases and Strategies for Painless and Productive Performance Reviews, offers these tips:

·         Ask for interim conversations, rather than saving all your accomplishments until the end of the year. Otherwise, you’ll only gloss over the past year and end up focusing on the past two weeks' accomplishments.

·         Complete the assessment form yourself or write out your successes if there isn’t one. Be fair and realistic about your accomplishments and missteps. Include training you completed that enabled you to do a new task or improve one.

·         Look at your last performance review. Figure out whether your responsibilities have changed since then and document how so. Have many been added, but none taken away, or vice versa? If so, how should your priorities be re-set? If you were your boss, what new goals would you set for yourself?

·         Work into the conversation what you would like your next career step to be. Ask your manager what it would take for you to get there.

·         Finally, step back and evaluate whether you have enough documentation to frame a request for more money, a promotion or an official change in your level of responsibility.

To find out SIOP’s other top work place trends for 2016, visit http://www.siop.org/article_view.aspx?article=1467#sthash.cpzZHCpk.dpuf