Most people are familiar with regular employee performance reviews. But what about your business? Conducting a mid-year review, usually around the end of the second quarter, gives you the opportunity to connect with your employees and receive valuable feedback. It’s also a good time to recommend any performance changes that you may see before the regularly scheduled employee evaluation, gives you a chance to set goals and reduce turnover.

Here are some steps to follow to conduct an effective mid-year review:

1. Prepare early. Give yourself at least three days in advance to collect documents that will help measure your employees’ progress, become familiar with any new tasks they have taken on or goals they have said they would like to achieve.
2. Assess strengths and weaknesses. Letting your workers know what they are good at and where they can improve can boost morale and offer insight on what they need to work on. If you are discussing weaknesses, be sure to give them actionable steps to make it easier for them to make changes.
3. Create a detailed agenda. Tailor one for each employee and make the most of your time together. Leave plenty of time for questions and concerns.
4. Choose a time and place and send calendar invites. This will let your employees know you take this seriously. Be sure you hold these meetings in a quiet, distraction-free zone where they will feel free to open up and share how things are truly going.
5. Be specific. Going into details about how an employee has excelled or how they could specifically improve will help an employee truly understand how their performance is viewed. Provide hard numbers or metrics to back this up.
6. Discuss the past and future. Show your employee how far they have come and help them set future goals.
7. Discuss compensation at a different time. This review should only focus on work performance. Save compensation discussions for the end-of-year review.
8. Ask for feedback. Send out a survey to see how your employees felt about the review and how you can improve going forward. Take their feedback seriously and change your processes accordingly.

Communicate with your employees regularly so they are never left wondering where they stand. Adding a mid-year review to that process is just another way you can help mentor your employees and help them to grow to their greatest potentials.