Time for a modern interview cycle? This is what you need!

More and more companies and organizations are saying goodbye to the traditional performance interview and appraisal interview and want to opt for a modern interview cycle. But how do you realize them? To that end, focus on talents and employee development from an ongoing dialogue with their manager. With targeted coaching and clear outcome agreements. But what do you need for that?

From 'wanting' to 'doing'

The old assessment interview and performance interview no longer function. Many organisations want to modernise their assessment and interview cycle. To that end, they envision ongoing coaching of employees with motivational and targeted feedback for their development. That sounds like a noble endeavor, but how do you get it done? After all, the interview cycle itself is not the "core business" of employees. But in an approachable and organic way, awareness of their own development and performance can be a focus, which they also regularly consciously engage in. Not because 'the boss' tells them to, but because they feel it is useful and they want it themselves.

Why a modern interview cycle?

This means that many organisations need to make a big change. But why really? The main reason is that employees and managers alike find traditional appraisals pointless: a waste of time and money. While it is also demotivating and unfair (because many other factors play a role in appraisal) and then appraisals do not have a positive effect on employee performance. These objections all emerged from seven years of research at the Free University. Researcher Kilian Wawoe wrote the book The New Reward on this subject. In it, he calls for the abolition of the "conviction interview". The demotivating appraisal interview should be replaced by ongoing coaching with motivational feedback for employees. "Because the work environment has changed dramatically. We work in flatter organizations, more agile, more in teams and we do more complex work," Wawoe said. Many HR professionals recognize the problem and are now looking for new ways forward. The researcher (and HR professor) argues for a better appraisal cycle and a more modern way of dealing with staff: more effective, fairer, smoother, with two-way conversations and more continuous conversations between employees and managers.

From assessment interview to development interview

Modernizing the interview cycle is closely related to how organizations assess their employees. For "the new assessment," they want to look at employee performance in a different way. For decades, classic interview cycles were something like this:

• At the beginning of the year, goals were established together during a goals or planning meeting.
• Mid-year goals were discussed in a progress or performance review.
• The "reckoning" followed at the end of the year with a review of objectives in an assessment meeting.

The new assessment shifts the focus from judging - or "judging" for those who prefer to call it that - and rewarding to talent and (personal) development. The appraisal interview and performance interview give way to development interviews between managers and employees. No longer at three isolated times a year, but more often, shorter, more approachable and, above all, more coaching. With the goal of a more continuous dialogue especially about growth and development. With that comes a new way of assessing.

Solutions for the modern interview cycle

The focus on development interviews with a modern interview cycle gives employees much more control over their own development. The interview cycle includes all the times when managers have contact about their development. These don't just have to be literal "conversations" anymore. The dialogue can be broader. After all, a modern interview cycle has multiple points of contact and, above all, is flexibly tailored to the individual. That requires an agile development cycle. In doing so, feedback questionnaires can be used to ensure truly valuable feedback. And for relevant topics of conversation at the times when people do actually speak to each other. It is a waste of time to then have to dwell on procedural "musts" or to have to look for the main topics of conversation first. Modern HR software can fortunately support the agile development and conversation cycle perfectly. That puts a valuable tool in your hands, but organizations need to take more steps, because the software is only a tool. Examples Some of our relations have already adjusted their cycle. The main question asked is: Can't it be simpler! In practice, every organisation wants to incorporate everything into one assessment system, and that is precisely where the pitfall lies. From our experience, it makes more sense to build it up/out step by step and get employees used to a modern interview cycle. For example, we developed the BilaBasic for a logistics organization for their operations staff. This includes 5 questions on basic core topics that facilitate good conversation based on online preparation by employee and manager. This results in a concrete action list. Another option is the Development Interview. This agile development cycle was developed by hrmforce for a number of organisations wanting to facilitate professionals in their growth and development. The employee is invited to reflect on his or her own development. Step by step, employees are taken through a process. The process can be started at any time and depends on set position, manager, competencies and result areas. All development solutions can be combined with our psychometric questionnaires.

Implementing the modern interview cycle

Anyone wanting to put people first must be able to flexibly align the entire development cycle of the organization with that. Thus, you move from a unilateral process from the organization or manager to a more collective process. In it, manager and employee jointly set the goals and direction and they are also jointly responsible for this. Consider at least these steps:

1. Start the dialogue

It starts with the dialogue between employee and manager about his (or her) talents, competencies and ambitions. Where does anyone want to be in three years? And how can the organization help achieve those ambitions? And how do you give employees the insight needed to do so? Think about that and see how it can be captured in someone's personal development process. Also see how feedback questionnaires can provide support in this regard. Thus, the step to motivating and goal-oriented feedback.

2. Make short-term outcome agreements

Those who choose a modern interview cycle want to have an ongoing dialogue with meaningful conversations and contacts between employee and manager. Talent and (personal) development are key, but you also make results agreements. This is an important prerequisite for the new reward and for making the new agile conversation cycle purposeful and concrete, though. In doing so, don't just look at the longer term, but especially make shorter-term outcome agreements, such as quarterly.

3. From judging to developing

When evaluating outcome agreements, the development conversation should also remain guiding. Avoid a newassessment interview feeling like a "judgment call. Discuss openly and honestly what is going well, what could be improved and what is needed to achieve the goals set. Instead of looking primarily at KPIs, engage in a broad conversation about an employee's results, competencies and behavior. Thus, the focus quickly shifts from thinking in "right or wrong" to talents and the targeted support needed.

4. What tools are needed?

In addition to the tools employees need for development, a modern interview cycle also needs tools to ensure that the desired dialogue can be conducted properly and flexibly. Consider for your employees and organization what tools are needed for an agile development cycle and what, for example, the added value can be of modern feedback questionnaires, for the coaching dialogue between employee and manager. That, after all, is the new "holy grail.