Performance Review Anxiety...

It's that time again! If your employer's policy is to drag the whole company, kicking and screaming, through its yearly, company-wide performance reviews, you're probably going through yours right now. Gotta love it!

(Especially the kind that starts with a multi-step, carefully-written self-appraisal, then submitted to your boss, who then passes it up to their boss...and so forth up the line.)

Officially, these kinds of red-tape endeavors are necessary in your company's attempt to track its people's performance and dole out (hopefully) appropriate compensation. But inadvertently, the practice of forced self-evaluation also provides the in-houser with an opportunity to bone up on that valuable corporate survival skill called self-promotion.

From a career-management standpoint, it also gives you the chance to look back on the past year of your performance, evaluate your successes and shortcomings, and lay out new work-related goals for the coming year. This isn't just in the interest of 'brown-nosing' or 'horn tooting' but also getting some real value and sense of accomplishment from what you do. Below is a brief, generic, sample self-evaluation which may sound similar to the one you're doing now:

As this company's first dedicated web designer, I have contributed much to the efficiency of the E-Commerce process, as well as the overall effectiveness of TheCompany.com as an online retail outlet and branding tool.

As part of our initiative to control more of the production process in-house—which will ultimately save costs by creating a more efficient and flexible operation—E-Commerce has already achieved the following successes:

• The ability to consistently fulfill our weekly production deadlines has dramatically improved.
• We're able to gradually take on more production responsibilities and develop richer, higher-quality, more user-friendly content.
• Greater cross-branding cohesiveness has been achieved, between our year-round Print and Web marketing efforts.

Another achievement on which I personally pride myself is having developed a workflow system that is efficient, flexible, and easily taken on by other assisting designers and employees. My goals for the coming year are to

1. create and implement a much improved, more effective design and content structure for TheCompany.com,
2. help develop and organize an even more capable in-house staff dedicated to our E-comm and Marketing initiatives, and
3. continue streamlining and refining Web design and production, through the advent and implementation of ever better processes.

Tracking progress. Setting goals. Self-improvement. Essentially, the evaluation process is your time to shine. Not only is it smart practice for anyone working in-house, but employers eat this stuff up! So don't be afraid of the dreaded 'yearly performance review'—it's not so dreadful as it seems. The 'value' of evaluations is that they can help you 1) reassess your career goals and directions, 2) dust off those rusty self-promo skills, 3) enhance your visibility and credibility with the bosses, and 4) maybe even get a pay increase...

(Well, so much for wishful thinking!)