Trainee talk – Getting the most from your quarterly performance review

Our Head of Education Rob Marrs provides some advice on offering effective feedback and how preparation for quarterly reviews during the traineeship can pay dividends.

I’ve blogged before about giving effective feedback to trainee solicitors. Feedback should be given in real time or close to it (eg within 48 hours). As well as that there are structured opportunities throughout the traineeship to give deep feedback and help trainees develop.

Ideally, the eight quarterly performance reviews are an opportunity to sit down with the trainee in a structured setting, away from the day job, to assess how they are progressing towards the PEAT 2 Outcomes. Most trainees progress smoothly most of time – even trainees who aren’t quite hitting their straps in one area do OK in others.

Trainees all progress at different speeds, bumps in the road are hit, and sometimes more work from both trainer and trainee is needed. The review allows both to focus properly on what is going well, where progress needs to be made and consider if there are areas where the trainee hasn’t had the opportunity to try their hand.

Granted the reviews take time. The build-up and preparation, the meeting, the trainee writing them up, the supervising solicitor reading over the write up. When done properly the time is worth the investment, as they can lead to quicker, smoother process for the trainee and help avoid conflict within the traineeship.

This time round, and again picking up on some themes from the recent trainee and training manager surveys, I wanted to pick up on how to get the most out of quarterly performance reviews. I’m going to look at an example, but hopefully the lessons apply across the reviews.

Again, imagine you are a partner at a large firm, Gage Whitney LLP (for The West Wing fans among us), and your trainee, Sam, is coming up for his fourth quarterly review. Progress against most Outcomes is good but there are a few things that you’d like to pick up. You’ve raised these directly on a couple of occasions and given clear feedback.

The issue seems simple: on a few occasions when you’ve asked Sam to prepare something, you have received it minutes before the deadline (he is a lawyer in the making after all!). However, on inspection it becomes clear that the work is rushed – things are missed, the drafting is sloppy and you have to spend more time than you’d like (and more time that you’d expect at his stage) correcting the work. This impacts you and your ability to do other work.

What are the real issues at stake?

1. The trainee has received feedback on development needs in real-time but continues to make errors.
2. The issue is rooted in Professional Relationships and Team-Working – the trainee’s sloppiness on occasion leads to you undertaking more work. But necessarily that may impact progress against other Outcomes: Professionalism, Professional Communication, providing legal advice, legal research, writing and drafting.
3. Whilst the trainee – more often than not – is doing good work this is an issue that is impacting you and your workload.
4. It isn’t clear why it is continuing to happen, even if less frequently. Does the trainee not understand impact of the issue? Is he prioritising deadline over quality? Is he leaving everything to the last minute? Is he prioritising less urgent and important work before jumping to something too late in the day? Is there too much work meaning that he can’t avoid making the mistakes? Is there something away from work impacting the trainee?

The first step is to actually spend time preparing for the review – working out (and writing down) what you want to say, the points you want to get across and questions you may wish to ask of the trainee. The worst reviews are ones where both parties haven’t prepared. You can aid this process by giving the trainee time to prepare for the review. The review is necessarily wide-ranging, but in this instance we’ll focus on this one area of feedback.

Make the trainee feel at ease in the build-up, and during, the review. Even though there may be constructive criticism the key is to find a way from the review to work collaboratively to help the trainee meet the Outcomes. That’s on both of you.

So, adapting the approach set out in the effective trainee blog:

• Why have you chosen to focus on this Outcome for development?
  • We’ve spoken a number of times about the quality of work given to me. You’ll remember we spoke about this after you provided advice on 2 April, 19 May, and 29 of June.
• What happened?
  • On those occasions I received work that needed significant revision. I understand that you are learning and that there will always be something for me to pick up on. These examples though were beyond what we’d normally expect from a trainee.
• Why did it happen?
  • You told me at the time it was down to pressure of work and having too many competing demands. I’ll review workload where I can. We spoke about the need to prioritise what was urgent and important.
• What would you like to happen?
  • I’m raising it in the PQPR as it has happened more than once. Whilst it is principally a time-management issue, it has impacted performance against other Outcomes. The impact of poor-quality work is wasted time and senior staff taking more time than necessary to fix matters. In the future I want you to speak to me in advance of a deadline if you think you are struggling to meet it and whether there may be an impact on the quality of your work (and my time). I’d also like you to outline in covering emails to me anything you found difficult or struggled with as that will help me hone in and give you the best possible feedback. We can then speak about prioritisation. I’m also happy to see earlier drafts to check you are on the right track. There’s been some progress since we last spoke, which is great. It is important that we manage time effectively and provide clear advice. Let’s monitor this and consider it again at the next review if needs be.

Then ask if the trainee has any questions, ask if there is anything else they’d like to say, and move on to the next part of the review.

It may be that Sam throws you a curveball: that he is dealing with a health issue or an issue at home he hasn’t shared before, that other solicitors in the team are giving him work that he feels he has to do. Encourage openness, listen and decide next steps together.

This approach – preparation, building understanding, evaluation, and then developing a course of action and review – should lie at the heart of quarterly performance reviews. A meeting that allows open, fair feedback both ways and is focused on positive development is surely the aim.

I understand it is far easier to write about the ideal type of review than to do one. The PQPR though deserves some attention and should be an opportunity to be clear on how improvement can occur.

The PQPRs may – to a busy solicitor – seem like one of those annoying things that clutter the day and ‘get in the way of real work’. They are though an important part of the traineeship and can be a very useful development tool. The content and tone of the discussion is massively more important than the filling in of the form.

To trainees they are something that matters a great deal so getting them right, and using them effectively, is important. Many of the issues we see come before the Admissions Sub-Committee, or that we discuss with trainees, could have been avoided (and much heartache stopped) if matters had been openly discussed at trainee reviews.

A final point: please never give a good review or avoid constructive criticism to avoid disputes or upsetting the trainee. If development needs aren’t considered or focused upon they will only fester. That way lies upset all round!