If you're like most business owners and managers, there's one first quarter task that you dread - giving your employees their performance reviews. The process is difficult, sometimes painful, and always time consuming, if the reviews are done right. Understandably, managers just don't like having to sit across the table from someone and confront them with shortcomings, or even to give them "bad news."

A meaningful performance review process, however, doesn't just happen once every year - it happens every day throughout the year. As uncomfortable as it might be, if you want the performance from employees that will make a real difference, they have to be counseled and coached on a regular, ongoing basis. This is the only way they are going to have the constructive input and continuing reinforcement that they need to really improve and perform at a level that allows both them and your business to grow.

As the owner of your business, or the person responsible for making things happen, it's your job to create the accountability that gets the results you are looking for. Do you want to create real accountability for yourself and for your company? Then tell your employees something like this: "The HR policy of this company (or, this department) is for you to know where you stand - what you do well and what you need to do to get better - all the time. If you hear something in your performance review next year that surprises you, then I haven't done my job! And, if your managers tell you something for the first time in your performance review, then they haven't done their job."

When you go on record with a statement like this, you are creating real accountability in your business. You're putting every employee of the company on notice that communication doesn't happen just once a year. Every manager knows that he or she is not going to be able to "slip" some criticism into the conversation, covering it with platitudes and niceties; and every employee knows that the reviewing manager hasn't met the responsibilities that you have laid out for them, if they are surprised during the review.

Communication often proves to be a challenge for people, even though we all recognize that it's the foundation of success. Sometimes the issue has to be forced and an accountability environment has to exist that compels people to talk to each other. Performance reviews are too important to the success of any business to not be part of the accountability process.

Jim Deyo is the President of Business Advisor Online, an internet based service that provides small businesses with the ideas they need to grow and the resources they require to make the right decisions. As a former Sr. Vice President with a major banking institution, Jim worked extensively with small and medium sized companies and has over 30 years experience in commercial and consumer lending, accounting, finance, marketing, and strategic planning. Visit the website at http://www.businessadvisoronline.com and sign up for a six week free trial of the service, or e-mail Jim at jimdeyo@businessadvisoronline.com