For anyone conducting a performance review, it’s likely you are already taking a step back to gain a full understanding of all that you’re evaluating. Even if simply done via observations and quick notes, this intake is allowing you to gain a full picture into the behavior patterns and skill sets that your colleagues are displaying over the course of time, not just in the present moment.

While more informal, there is something to take away from this process.

It mirrors exactly what organizations can and should allow the data available to them to produce – a full intake and wide lens gauge of their information. Take a step further, and organizations can use that data and information to drive a more thorough performance review-business wide. The key to ensuring this succeeds? Access.

You don’t know what you don’t know. And when it comes to data, you may think you have the full picture when in fact you really are just looking through a smaller lens; so it appears nothing is missing, but much more lies outside the existing boundaries that would help provide context.

That’s where data extraction becomes pivotal. At Bearex, we refer to the start of this process as ‘taking inventory’ – looking at the expansive network that is your most utilized reports, tools, databases, and meetings – to better understand the workflows in place and where gaps may result. In doing so, every necessary piece of data can be pulled from its source and become an interconnected web with one another for automated entry, analysis, and further action.