Celebrating our A Team

As My Food Bag wraps up yet another review period, I love the buzz that it generates. It’s the opportunity for us to touch base with our team and discuss their achievements over the past period. It also enables us to celebrate success and set the key performance indicators for the next period. As part of the review, we re-set expectations and ensure that we are on the same page.

While we transparently share with our entire team our monthly performance metrics, on a six monthly basis we pay our team a bonus based on individual and company performance. We link company performance to pay because we believe that our team dictates My Food Bags success.

Simple, right? However, it often surprises me how many companies fail to understand this link. For some reason, many organisations not only seem to fail in setting goals for individual performance but also continually seem to ignore the link between individual performance and company performance. At My Food Bag, we believe the two are intimately entwined. We love recognising this shared success but also that should the going get tough; we’re all in it together.

As we go through the review period it’s paramount that we remember not only that, but that one of the cornerstone beliefs of our purpose is that ‘We will only recruit a team talent who love delighting foodies’ further to that ‘We will provide them with Responsibility, Learning, Recognition and Joy.’ So keep that in mind as part of your journey and make sure that you feel as if you are ticking off all of them, and if not that you raise it with your manager.

Lastly, as there is always a sense of nerves and hope going through a review period here are my top 5 tips to getting the best out of your next review:

1. Make sure you rate yourself!

As part of the review process you need to rate your performance across your KRAs (Key Results Areas). It’s important that you rate how you have performed as well as provide feedback to substantiate this. However, remember that a ‘met’ performance is doing every function of your role and doing it bloody well.

2. Performance can be subjective.

To the point above, performance is often subjective. Therefore, it’s paramount that you have clear ‘met’ and ‘stretch’ targets as part of your review form. Otherwise it’s easy to fall into the trap of saying ‘I feel I have achieved’ rather than ‘I have achieved’. Demonstrating why you have ‘exceeded’ an area should be clearly linked to the measurable results you have achieved!

3. Working hard vs high performance

While you might feel that working long hours is a massive commitment/achievement – that doesn’t necessarily equal high performance. Working hard is an organisational accountability – not a measureable target. Don’t get confused by these two concepts. It’s also important to remember that working hard isn’t always in the best interest of you or the business. If you are working harder to compensate for something which isn’t working well, the best thing you can do is to speak up (with a solution).

4. Asking for a pay increase

At MFB we conduct yearly pay reviews. Remember that discussing your pay or comparing your pay with other team members is not constructive (and can often come across as immature). The only person who can impact your pay is your manager. Having a direct and transparent conversation with your manager is the best way to achieve this. But you also need to have realistic expectations and understand that there isn’t an endless pool of cash.

5. You are the master of your own destiny

Set both career and personal goals, these are not mutually exclusive (but for some reason they are often treated as such). Think about what you need from your role to be able to achieve your personal goals and vice versa e.g. what you need in your personal life to achieve your career goals. At the end of the day, the key person who can influence your personal and professional goals is you!