Avoiding 'December syndrome'

It’s the height of summer and the UK’s workforce is working flat out. With concerns over public sector spending cuts and pay freezes to the fore and ‘knock-on’ effects expected across the private sector, employees are striving to hit targets and perform to the best of their ability.

But towards the end of the year, with Christmas just around the corner, will staff still be working as hard as they were in the middle of July?  Employees can be forgiven for relaxing a little as another tough year winds down, but for many companies, December is the month when they conduct their annual performance and pay reviews.

Of course, these reviews should look at what has been achieved over the past twelve months but many managers will inevitably focus disproportionately on how staff have performed in recent weeks. This is known as the ‘recency effect’. In other words, employees may fall prey to ‘December Syndrome’, leading to reviews that do not truly reflect their performance over the year as a whole.