Old Structures has grown at a pace of roughly one added employee per year for the last nine years, from two people at the beginning of 2007 to ten at the beginning of 2015. When we were very small, we were relatively casual about annual reviews, in part because there were so few to be performed and in part because we tried to give immediate feedback to employees, both good and bad.
We still try to give immediate feedback (after all, ten people is still not very big) but we have in place a formal review program for the year end. It’s represented by a printed form that all three principals work on together for each employee, but that form only has three items on it. The principals ask ourselves, and then pass on to our employees (1) what are they doing that they should stop doing? (2) what are they not doing that they should start doing? and (3) what are they doing that they should keep doing? These broad questions allow us to look at not just daily performance but the bigger picture of each employee’s career and how they fit in at OSE. Finally, since feedback always need to work in both directions, they have the opportunity to address those same three questions with regard to the company.
Fair reviews and advice on overall goals are things we owe our employees, and therefore part of how we answer the Best for NYC Challenge.
