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Professional Courtesy: The Employee Preview by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine

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The Employee Preview

by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, Editorial Director, Dentaltown Magazine
Do you perform annual employee reviews on your dental team? If you do, you probably hate the process and find it easy to procrastinate. I did. Our May 2012 Dentaltown.com poll indicated that 59 percent of dental offices perform annual employee reviews and I was one of them. I have always made a practice of providing positive feedback throughout the day and addressing shortcomings in a current manner but that didn’t seem like enough in terms of documentation or formality. Over the years, I have developed some unique ways to measure employee performance, perform self-evaluations and set goals. It was all too complicated and I would soon find that it could also be destructive.

In fact, I mentioned my dislike of the annual review process in a column last year and I received a great suggestion from Townie, Dr. Tim Goodheart [aka Timmy G] – to read this book: Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing – and Focus on What Really Matters by Samuel A. Culbert with Lawrence Rout.

One justification for traditional employee reviews is the need to document poor performers in the event they need to be fired. Mr. Culbert disputes that reason by saying that the need to document the poor performance of a few is not enough reason to subject everyone to the agony of an annual review. Poor performance should be documented as it happens. The other common ingredient of the traditional employee review is the need to discuss whether or not a raise is in order. Once again, Mr. Culbert is opposed to this timing as he does not believe that a raise should be tied to this process at all. In fact, he suggests the discussion of a raise should be independent of any discussions about goals and performance.

A raise should be based on the following: 1. Whether or not you want to retain the employee and avoid the cost of replacement, 2. The amount of raise necessary to retain the employee and 3. Your budget. My personal opinion on these topics is that the combination of reviews and raises ultimately conditions an employee to expect a raise every 365 days, or else the burden is on the employer to write such a negative review that a raise would seem illogical.

The key ingredient to ridding our workplaces of employee reviews is something that the author calls an “Employee Preview.” The Employee Preview is essentially a meeting held with the employee in advance rather than a review of what has already happened. In a preview, both employee and boss are in a position to have a conversation about goals and initiatives, what is needed by both parties for success. It is a conversation. The traditional employee review is usually a monologue delivered by the boss to employee about what has already happened in the past with a listing of things they did right and things they did wrong.

This is the essence of the preview – “an ongoing dialogue between boss and subordinate, where each of them is responsible for asking the other: What can I do to make us work together better and get the results we’re both on the hook for?” I would also add one more quote from the author: “I also want to dispel a possible misperception: that I am against evaluating performance and holding people accountable for results. Nothing could be more off the mark. I believe every imperfect performer must receive feedback relevant to improving his or her effectiveness and accomplishing company results. Consistently screw up, consistently give the company less than what it requires, and you will be shown the door.”

I would love to read your thoughts on employee reviews in the comments section attached to this article online or reach out on Twitter: @ddsTom.

Dentaltown Magazine
October 2025
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