Hello Waggle Community!

April is around the corner and this month we are turning our focus to a cornerstone of effective leadership—performance reviews.

As managers, our approach to evaluating our team members not only impacts their growth and morale but also the overall success of our organization. Whether you're refining an existing process or seeking new perspectives, we're here to guide you through the nuances of delivering meaningful, fair, and constructive feedback that drives performance and fosters a culture of continuous improvement.

Know anyone who would benefit from receiving this newsletter? Share it with them and help us support even more managers to be the leaders they always wanted to work with!

👂🏼Leadership Challenges:

“Can I use ChatGPT to write my team’s performance reviews?”

While ChatGPT can generate well-articulated performance review examples, feeding it confidential company and employee data to create personalized reviews is risky. This could compromise the confidentiality of your company's and employees' information. Performance reviews are a critical component of employee development, fostering trust, morale, and retention. They should be fair, unbiased, and reflect an employee's performance comprehensively, considering achievements, areas for improvement, and future development needs.

To write effective performance reviews, managers should follow structured guidelines, such as collecting feedback and data throughout the review period, avoiding recency bias, and using the AID (Action, Impact, Development) framework. Reviews should be balanced, acknowledging both strengths and areas for growth, and providing clear, actionable feedback.

While ChatGPT can offer structural guidance and generic examples, the personalized and sensitive nature of performance reviews necessitates a human touch, emphasizing fairness, confidentiality, and a comprehensive understanding of each employee's performance and development needs.

Reply to this email to send in your questions for next month’s newsletter!

🔔 What is new on the app

We've got some exciting news to share - notifications are finally here! 🎉 You've been asking for this feature for a while now, and we're stoked to make it happen. With notifications, you'll never miss a beat when it comes to your tasks and AI insights. Whether it's your AI-powered insights being ready for review, someone tagging you on a task, or an update on one of the tasks you're following, you'll get a friendly nudge right in the Waggle app.

For now, these notifications will live inside the app, but don't worry - we've got bigger plans! Email and Slack notifications are on the way, so you can stay looped in no matter where you're working. This is just the beginning, folks. We're always listening to your feedback and working hard to make Waggle even more awesome. Get ready to level up your productivity game!

🔗 Essential Reads from Our Blog

Grown, Not Born: From Strategy Consulting to Coaching with Helen Hodges

Discover the journey of Helen Hodges, a seasoned leader and coach, in our latest "Grown, Not Born" interview series. Helen shares her experience in management, particularly in the dynamic world of startups, providing a unique perspective on what it takes to be a great manager. She debunks the myth that management skills are innate, emphasizing the importance of learning and adapting. From her beginnings in strategy consulting to her impactful role at Urban Jungle, Helen's story is a testament to the power of growth and learning in leadership.

A Manager’s Guide: How to Write a Performance Review for an Employee

It's time to transform how you evaluate your team. Discover the art of crafting fair, unbiased performance reviews in our latest guide. Learn why a well-conducted review not only boosts trust and morale but also significantly impacts employee development, retention, and overall performance.

Whether you're preparing an annual, bi-annual, or quarterly review, our strategies will help you overcome the challenges and make the process more rewarding for you and your employees.

🤝 Invitation: Manager's Hive Breakfast Round-Table

Are you finding yourself spending hours doing performance reviews? Join us for a buzzing morning at the Managers Hive breakfast round-table on Wednesday, March 27th in Shoreditch. We will be sharing tips, tricks, and strategies that work!

We're breaking the ice with our very first in-person event in 2024, and we can't wait to gather your diverse perspectives for some serious inspiration!

We have 2 spots left so RSVP soon!

⭐️ Focus: Rocking Performance Reviews

This month we invite you to join us in focusing on a key strategy to reduce the stress and enhance the value of performance evaluations: continuous engagement with your team members.

By keeping notes from your one-on-one meetings and providing feedback at every stage, we can achieve two crucial outcomes: ensuring that the performance review doesn't come as a surprise and having a well-prepared draft to start from, rather than facing that daunting blank page.

Consider leveraging tools like Waggle, designed to help you track and manage these critical conversations, ensuring that you have a comprehensive and ready reference when the time comes.

Warm regards,

Sarah Touzani

Co-founder, Waggle

P.S. We love hearing from you! Share your feedback on this newsletter and performance review tips and ideas with us.