Why Mid-Year Reviews are the Secret to Year-End Success

Slower summer months are the perfect time to get the jump on a strong year-end. Yes, really!

While many organizations conduct annual, year-end performance reviews for their employees, mid-year reviews, while less common, can help build great organizational culture. 

Mid-year reviews (or a “lighter” version, the “mid-year touch base”) are an important tool for employers, providing supervisors and employees an opportunity to assess and discuss employee performance and progress against goals, proactively discuss any concerns and/or challenges, and collaboratively develop action plans—all before the usually more intensive and salary-related year-end review process.

This post will cover the following questions (handy hyperlinks below so you can skip ahead if you’d like!):

What is a Mid-Year Review?

Why Should We Conduct Mid-Year Reviews?

What are Some Benefits of Mid-Year Reviews?

How Should We Conduct Mid-Year Reviews?

How Should We Conduct Mid-Year Reviews with Virtual Employees?

Exciting stuff, right? We agree! So let’s get to it!

What is a Mid-Year Review?

A mid-year review is a process whereby supervisors formally connect with employees toward the end of Q2 (we recommend June) to evaluate goals and assess employee progress on essential functions.  Those essential functions should be easily found in each employee’s position description (if you don’t have those, please call or email us ASAP!).  During the mid-year review, in addition to assessing performance, supervisors can coach employees and make any necessary performance changes before the official year-end review process, which is typically more in-depth.

Mid-year reviews can be detailed processes similar to year-end reviews, including written self-assessments by employees and formal feedback and evaluation from supervisors. Alternatively, the mid-year review can take the form of a less detailed and sometimes equally effective “mid-year touch base.” Mid-year touch bases are a “review-lite” and provide an opportunity for employees and supervisors to have a more general performance related conversation, discuss the team member’s progress on previously established goals, and provide top level feedback and key focus areas for the months ahead, leading to a strong and simplified entry into the more involved year-end review process.

To keep things simple, we will refer to both as mid-year reviews—but you should know that the structure for this process is flexible and different formats work for different kinds of organizations!

Why Should we Conduct Mid-Year Reviews?

Top line answer: A mid-year review is a great way to be intentional about keeping the annual performance conversation going in a little-to-no pressure way and builds culture in the process.  Win-win.

Here’s more:

The year-end review should not be the first or only time employees have an opportunity to formally engage with their supervisors about their performance, nor should it be the first time supervisors proactively convene with employees to discuss concerns or provide meaningful feedback. 

In fact, we will go so far as to say that mid-year reviews give annual performance reviews far greater purpose and focus. When an entire year passes between reviews, it is difficult to achieve meaningful, substantive, actionable feedback and results. Instead, year-end reviews are often reduced to formalities in place to simply check the HR box. And the typical inclusion of compensation in the year-end review tends to ratchet up the intensity of that conversation even further. 

When mid-year reviews are conducted, less time lapses between reviews, the ongoing conversation about performance remains more fluid, and employees have a reasonable timeframe during which to make progress and report back on their goals. The mid-year review is also an opportunity to note where support and additional resources might be necessary, positioning supervisors and employees for a productive, focused, and intentional year-end conversation. 

Additionally, while year-end reviews often focus on past performance, mid-year reviews are a good place to focus on the future and develop action plans for improved performance through the remainder of the year. Perhaps most important of all, teams that engage in more frequent reviews benefit from an improved culture of ongoing dialogue about employee performance, allowing it to remain an open and comfortable topic rather than a foreboding year-end summoning.

What are Some Benefits of Mid-Year Reviews?

Still need convincing? Below are some benefits the mid-year review process offers to employers and team members alike:

• Feedback opportunity. Supervisors have an opportunity to give feedback to employees on their performance, including complimenting good work (boosting morale and motivating employees through the end-of-year cycle), and discussing performance challenges and how to rectify them.

• Open dialogue. Employees have an opportunity to express issues, concerns, or specific desires for growth and development with their supervisors. 

• Documentation of performance concerns. Supervisors can proactively document performance issues and that they were discussed with the employee (as these can become especially relevant during the year-end process but should be documented well in advance). In chronic or acute cases, supervisors can introduce a performance improvement plan (PIP) during the mid-year review process, and use the year-end review as a time to assess whether expectations as outlined in the PIP have been met.  

• Separated from compensation. The mid-year review process is separated from compensation (unlike the year-end review process), allowing for candid conversation detached from the pressures of compensation questions or concerns.

• Simplified year-end review process. Mid-year reviews give employees an opportunity to build on skills or correct problems by the time year-end reviews approach. They also provide more structure to year-end reviews, which flow from the assessments made and feedback offered in the mid-year reviews.

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How Should We Conduct Mid-Year Reviews?

Our recommended approach to mid-year reviews is as follows: 

• Employee Self Assessment: For a formal mid-year review (rather than a touch-base), employees fill out a detailed self-assessment, describing their performance against the essential functions outlined in their position descriptions as well as their progress on the goals they identified at year-end. In the case of a touch-base, employees fill out an assessment that is more brief and less detailed, responding to key questions related to their performance and progress.

• Supervisor Feedback: For a formal mid-year review, supervisors respond with a written evaluation of employees, rating them on various aspects of their performance. In the case of a touch base, supervisors typically discuss their feedback in-person and the conversation is documented (the following step). 

• Meet to Discuss: In either case, employees and supervisors meet, using position descriptions and the employee self-assessments from year-end reviews as a guide for a discussion around year-to-date performance. They share their assessments of employee performance, discussing positive work as well as areas for improvement, and review employee progress on goals (previously established during year-end reviews) as well as opportunities for growth and development. Noteworthy issues and/or discussion points are documented and stored in employee files, and serve as an important focus/discussion point during year-end reviews. 

• Maintain Documentation. In all cases, the mid-year materials should be available for any intervening position changes and/or performance improvement issues prior to the year-end review process. Observations and/or notes recorded during the mid-year process can serve as ongoing discussion points during the year-end review process.

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How Should We Conduct Mid-Year Reviews with Virtual Employees?

Needless to say, many employees are working remotely in light of concerns around the spread of COVID-19. However, mid-year reviews are now more important than ever. Given the current circumstances, a formal review (even if it’s virtual!) will give employees the opportunity to discuss any hindrances to performing their work remotely. Furthermore, employees may feel particularly out of touch while outside of the physical work environment. Supervisors should engage in regular touch bases and 1:1 conversations in addition to mid-year reviews! 

Tips for supervisors conducting virtual employee reviews:

• (Virtual) Face-to-Face is Best. Conduct the mid-year review via video chat rather than phone. Doing so makes for a more candid conversation as it helps to build comfort and connection between employees and supervisors, and allows supervisors to pick up on nonverbal cues. It also communicates to the employee that these conversations are a priority. 

• Let Them Go First. Ask employees about their remote working arrangements—what is working well, and what challenges are they facing? Offer support where possible. 

• Invite Honest Feedback. Request feedback on your own leadership style.  Perhaps your communications and expectations are not as clear in a remote environment as they are in-office. Staff may require extra communication and/or support while working remotely and may not feel comfortable voicing it. So invite the conversation!

• Be Focused and Friendly. Think about how you can facilitate an open conversation through virtual means—and in that regard, consider these pro tips: 

  • Pro Tip 1: Silence notifications. Diverting your attention may communicate to the employee that you’re not invested in the conversation.

  • Pro Tip 2: Pay attention to your own body language. Are you hunched over, with folded arms? Are you avoiding eye contact? Negative nonverbal cues can stop an open conversation in its tracks. Keep it friendly and comfortable for everyone with your body language.

  • Pro Tip 3: Remain compassionate. This is a difficult time for many, and individuals may be distracted during the work day because they have to care for children or family members, they do not have dedicated work spaces at home, their partner has been laid off, or they are otherwise struggling due to personal circumstances. They also may be feeling lonely, anxious, or depressed. Create a space where they are comfortable discussing the challenges they are facing, and practice empathy.

    
    

Ready to go!

If you have questions or need help facilitating the mid-year review process, contact us. We love this stuff!

Happy mid-year!

Beyond Advisers and Social Impact Law Featured in ABA Journal

Beyond Advisers was featured in the April/May 2020 issue of the ABA Journal, where founder Scott Curran addressed how lawyers can both make money and do good through social impact work.

Check out the article below for more!

Corporate lawyers can help clients change the world—and bill for it—with this growing practice area

Jenny B. Davis

Ten years ago, New York City corporate lawyer Chintan Panchal left BigLaw to found a different kind of firm—one where he could use Wall Street-style deal structures to make a difference in the world and get paid for doing it.

“Everyone was like, ‘This doesn’t make sense, it’s just philanthropy—you’re going to have to get back to doing real work,’” he recalls. But I said, ‘No, I think this is the future.’”

Panchal was right. Today RPCK Rastegar Panchal boasts two offices—in New York City and Vienna—and a list of clients merging mission with for-profit business methods in areas like public finance, fund formation and social impact investing. Panchal regularly works with advisory firms, private equity firms, family offices and others involved in impact-focused investing, and he’s even helped entrepreneurs bring solar power to areas of sub-Saharan Africa through cellphone chip-based payment systems.

Dubbed by some as a “fourth sector” of entity organization along with private industry, government and nonprofits, so-called social enterprises are often mentioned in context with such buzzy words as “blended-value” and “for-benefit.” The goal of these companies and impact investing is to generate revenue while prioritizing social missions, including the “triple bottom line” of people, planet and profit.

What social enterprise and impact investing is not, Panchal says, is a specific asset class, deal type or business structure. “Rather, it’s an approach—it’s a philosophy of doing business,” he says. “Taking a dollar and turning it into two is important, and it’s at the core of this, but the reason you do it and the direction you do it and the context in which you do it and the big and little decisions you make along the way are informed by this notion that you are driving progress toward solutions to some of the biggest challenges that we face as a society.”

Ultimately, he says, the goal is approaching social problems as opportunities “and using market dynamics, the profit imperative, as the engine to address that challenge.”

Even nonprofits have become players in this for-profit world, says Scott M. Curran, former general counsel to the Clinton Foundation and founder of Beyond Advisers, a Chicago-based social impact consulting firm. “Nonprofits are increasingly considering financing models that look a lot more like private sector activities, so they’re not dependent on giving-based models of support like grants and donations,” he says.

A blended approach

Lawyers who practice in the social enterprise and investment impact space say their structures vary depending on the deal, but all agree: This is not pro bono legal work. “It’s no longer about making money or doing good, it’s about making money and doing good,” Scott Curran says. And there seems to be an ever-increasing amount of both in this sector. Impact investing assets under management are increasing at an estimated 13% per year among active impact investors, according to a 2018 survey by the Global Impact Investing Network. The same survey found impact investments overwhelmingly meet or exceed investors’ expectations for both social and environmental impact and financial return. (However, not all impact investors actually expect market-rate returns.)

Many corporate firms already provide the type of services typically involved in social enterprise and impact investment law through existing practice areas like finance, tax and entity formation. While these areas may already be engaged in the impact space, it’s common for the work to be fragmented, uncoordinated efforts spread across many practice areas.

But as demand increases, many law firms are moving to form cohesive and distinct practice groups and working groups to better organize, scale and market their expertise. “If clients demand it and if talent demands it—and they are—the most competitive firms will simply have to have it,” Scott Curran says. “My message to the legal community is that you need to be building this, not just reacting to it.”

But New York University School of Law professor Deborah Kay Burand, co-director of the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, cautions that success in the social enterprise and impact investment space requires more than just a mastery of corporate legal skills or a marketing alliance.

“A lawyer who is working in this area must develop emotional intelligence and the ability to ask the right questions of their clients to find out what they’re trying to achieve and how they want to act in pursuit of those goals,” she says. “If you just say, ‘Oh, I know how to make sure you’ll get your money back in a transaction,’ you might have missed the whole reason the client is there.”

Refining the model

Orrick recognized the market movement early and was among the first to organize a cohesive impact approach. In 2017, the firm appointed Perry Teicher, a lawyer in its New York City office, as its first dedicated impact finance attorney. Teicher leads the firmwide Impact Finance and Investment practice, and Orrick bills this group as the first of its kind to be formed by a global law firm.

Not only does Teicher personally practice in this area—he’s counseled Blue Forest Conservation on the development and structure of the Forest Resilience Bond and has advised a state pension plan on becoming an anchor investor in a major global impact investment fund—but he also coordinates such efforts firmwide. The goal, he says, is to integrate, coordinate and support the myriad touchpoints involved in these often-complex transactions.

Teicher says having a clear structure in place is key. “There’s a lot of value in having a practice group that’s structured; that says there’s a home for this type of work.”

Chicago-based Chapman and Cutler is another firm that formalized its efforts in this area with a Social Finance and Impact Investing cross-disciplinary team.

“Chapman and Cutler was founded over 100 years ago with a substantial public finance practice, and over time it has evolved into a firm that is focused on all areas of finance. So for us, it made perfect sense to take that expertise and use it in the social impact space and to be more cognizant of the work that we and our clients were already doing in the social impact space,” partner Amy Cobb Curran says. She is a leader in social impact bonds, often called “pay for success” bonds, and since 2014, she’s represented investors and others in finance deals to address such social issues as early childhood education, homelessness reduction and recidivism reduction.

One transaction she worked on in 2016 involved young people caught up in both the criminal justice and the foster care systems. It was an experience she describes as both a great mental challenge and eye-opening. “These deals are hard,” she says, “but it is so rewarding to help, in some small way, the folks that deal with these social challenges every day.”

Amy Cobb Curran says her firm was particularly well-prepared to home in on this sector because of its breadth of expertise across finance and tax. “In the impact space in particular, there are a lot of tax considerations that need to be layered on top of the general finance work.” But she adds that this expertise isn’t exclusive to larger law firms. “Any law firm can do this, and any firm should do this,” she says. “At the end of the day, shouldn’t we all be striving to make an impact?”

Those in midsize and boutique firms agree. “Like in business, there are a lot of social impact organizations that occupy a middle-market space, or they’re startups or smaller, so we are a good fit for them,” says Chad Buttell, a partner at Patzik, Frank & Samotny, a 35-lawyer firm in Chicago.

Buttell says he’s handling increasingly more impact work, even from clients not typically active in that space. “I just had a conversation with a startup client who said, ‘In addition to our business proposition and the return we’re trying to generate for our investors, we want to put together a social impact platform’—that’s pretty exciting.”

Catering to clients

Whether it’s a solo in a shared space or a corporate lawyer in a high-rise, Burand says the market is simply demanding more lawyers who do this work, and they’re answering the call. Over the past decade, she says the practice area has experienced a “sea change,” and she co-founded the Impact Investing Legal Working Group to bring lawyers who are spread across this diverse space together through annual conferences.

The first meeting, held in 2014, was small enough to take place in a law firm conference room. This summer, the IILWG will co-host with the Grunin Center at NYU Law its seventh conference, and Burand expects attendance to top 500.

As more and more existing clients decide to invest and expand in a more holistic way, Burand explains, the legal work will only increase. “It’s no longer a practice that you’re choosing, it’s a practice that’s coming to you.”

Lawyers agree that standing out in the impact investing market doesn’t just benefit a firm’s bottom line, it also helps a firm recruit and retain top talent.

“Law students today want to be doing complex work that’s meaningful, and having the opportunity to do that where the ethos is embedded in the firm is really powerful,” Teicher says.

Many students decide they want to enter the impact investing space after gaining exposure and experience while in law school, Burand adds. In a survey she conducted in 2017-18 measuring offerings by accredited American law schools in this space, over 30% of responding schools were supporting legal scholarship, offering classes (including experiential courses like transactional clinics) and sponsoring extracurricular student activities—and sometimes all three—that address social entrepreneurship and impact investing, she says.

“The firms that can offer a practice that is not only financially lucrative but also meaningful will be golden—they’ll be able to recruit the best legal talent and hold on to that talent,” she says. “If you can engage their hearts and minds, you’re going to have a field of lawyers who can serve impact-driven clients well and help the firm do even better, and that’s a double and even triple bottom line for the law firms moving into this space.”

This article was originally published in the April/May 2020 issue under the headline, “Practicing Social Impact: In this growing practice area, corporate lawyers can help clients change the world—and bill for it.”

Here's to 2020...and Beyond!

2019 was a year of exponential growth and social impact success—for Beyond, for our clients, and we hope also for you! Here’s a quick look at our 2019:

• Our clients continue to amaze, inspire, and change the world across industries and sectors.
  

• We help them in virtually every aspect of their organization and work—from their Board to operations to program work.
  

• GCLO is our sweet spot. What the heck is that?  Read on!
  

• Our team is relentlessly focused on simplification and real, needle-moving social impact at scale!
  

• We’re expanding networks of impact by making connections between, among, and on behalf of our clients and their work.
  

Amazing Clients. Inspiring Work.

While we (still) don’t advertise who our clients are, you know them, love them, and are inspired by them.

Here’s a bit of what they—and we—have been up to:

• A-List Social Impact - We continue to see great demand by those with the biggest profiles and platforms to infuse social impact into everything they do, moving beyond “checkbook charity” or “celebrity endorsements” and into designing measurable impact into all facets of their lives, from their business pursuits to their family foundations. We help them design, build, and grow this inspiring work. 
  

• Big Business & Real Social Impact - CSR is doing good after a profit is made. Social Impact is doing good with the business model itself asprofit is made. This year, we saw the Business Roundtable’s shift to stakeholder (vs. shareholder) primacy. This week, Larry Fink and Blackrock emphasized that climate change has become a defining factorin companies’ long-term prospects and will fundamentally reshape finance. So from paradigm-shifting business strategies to supply chain sustainability to founder and corporate nonprofits adjacent to some of the most beloved brands, we’re helping private sector clients design, build and grow their work for streamlined, simplified, scalable social impact using the business model itself.
  

• Not Your Average Family Offices - Sleepy family offices passively funding their favorite causes are giving way to inspiring new founders driven to leverage their time, talent, and treasure for maximum social impact. Ambition driven by urgency to make a real difference on the most pressing issues of our time in innovative ways leads our family office clients to move from ideas to action with specificity, clarity, and purpose.
  

• Law Firm Leadership - As we often say, “nobody is doing it without their lawyers!” Lawyers and law firms from “Small Law” to “Big Law” (and everywhere in between) play a deeply important role in guiding and supporting dynamic social impact at scale. We help motivated law firmsthat understand this important role design, build and grow their firm’s approach to social impact at scale—reflecting the best of what they’re already doing in new, scalable, and profitable ways that proactively engage and delight their clients and talent alike!
  

• GCLO - Our Sweet Spot! - Governance, Compliance, Legal, and Operations of a nonprofit or social enterprise from the Board, to Executive Leadership, Operations Teams, and Program Staff.  This is where we spend the majority of our time. It’s no small focus or task. Our goal is to help the most ambitious growth-stage organization, program, and/or partnership simplify and streamline its approach to social impact scalability using the best advice, guidance, and tools.
  

• Expanding Networks and Building Partnerships - We are increasingly connecting clients with the wider community of social impact work whenever it makes sense. This has resulted in some incredible connections, partnerships, and more efficient and effective approaches to social impact at scale.  
  

We help clients plan big, build simple, and scale for impact.

Changing the world is hard. We make it easier.  

Our most popular services in 2019:

• Board Growth & Development -  An experienced, diverse, and engaged Board is key to the scalability and sustainability of any great organization. We help clients navigate a Board Growth & Development process to design, engage, and grow their Boards for maximum impact.
  

• General Counsel - From Board meetings to day-to-day program teams and every business operation in between (including LOTS of HR and contract review!), we make good governance and compliance simple and seamless (and even a little bit fun)!  We don’t replace law firms (and aren’t one), but we reduce the need for one, and make sure the use of them is efficient and effective when necessary.
  

• Executive Coaching & Counsel - We serve as experienced, trusted, independent advisers to our clients’ Board Chairs, CEOs, and other executives. Having an informed, engaged, and trusted team you can call on when new opportunities (or challenges) arise is important. It’s our privilege to be that resource to clients.
  

• Program Design & Development - We help our clients, design, build, change, and grow their organization’s work to maximize impact and scale their successes. With a team deeply experienced in global philanthropy and on the leading edge of social enterprises, we know what works and are uniquely positioned to help design, develop, and pivot programs, partnerships, and initiatives for impact. 
  

• Advocacy Strategies - Funders and organizations seeking to create positive change through public policy turn to our team to help develop smart, forward-thinking strategies at the state and federal levels to tackle some of the most challenging issues by looking at new ways to build power and winning outcomes.
  

• Principal-Level Storytelling - From commencement addresses and TED Talks to OpEds and full-fledged books, our Principal Messaging & Communications Team works with founders, CEOs, and executive-level leadership tell the stories of their organizations, their work, and their lives!
  

That’s just where we were busiest in 2019.  There’s a lot more to what we do. Check it out here.

The experience and talent of our team... 

are what make us unique, our services awesome, and our clients better off when we finish our work than when we started.

We hope you already know them and love them, but as a reminder, here’s who they are!

• Scott Curran - Social Impact Strategy General & Strategic Counsel Program & Initiative Design

• Zayneb Shaikley - Strategic Counsel; Human Resources; Partnerships; Commercial Transactions

• Joe Ballard - Program Design; Impact Assessment; Strategic Planning; Development Strategy

• Steve Rinehart - Principal Messaging & Communications

• David Horwich - Advocacy Campaigns & Philanthropic and Political Counsel

• Jim Jacoby - Brand Experience; Digital Infrastructure; Experience Design

• Scott Taitel - Social Impact Measurement, Innovation & Investment
  

We also supplement our core team by engaging a wider circle of some of our closest friends, colleagues, and collaborators who are renowned experts in their field. Their expertise includes everything from group facilitation and leadership development to social media marketing, graphic design, and event production.

WE HELP AMAZING PEOPLE CHANGE THE WORLD.

We’d love to help you, too!

If we aren’t already working together, let’s have a conversation about what we can do together in 2020! Shoot us an email at contact@beyondadvisers.com