How to Give Effective Criticism in the Workplace
Whereas destructive criticism focuses solely on a person's faults and shortcomings and offers nothing positive, effective criticism, or constructive criticism, touches on a person's faults and strengths and helps a person improve. All employees can improve in one way or another. An employee always has a weakness. If you identify that weakness, you can offer constructive criticism and help the employee improve. Offering constructive criticism requires you to talk about an employee's weakness without sounding stern or disappointed. Positivity is key.
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Instructions
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Document an employee's shortcomings and poor performance. Include anything that an employee does in a substandard way or could improve on. For example, if an employee cleans the restaurant poorly at the end of the night and doesn't organize the pots and pans, write down that problem.
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Call the employee into your office or a private room. To calm the employee's nerves, explain that you simply want to discuss his work performance. Ensure that the only people in the room are you and the employee.
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Tell the employee you've noticed a few things he could improve on. Reference your list of the employee's shortcomings. Explain each item on the list in detail. For example, if you tell the employee he needs to communicate better with customers, explain how his communication skills appear substandard. Suppose the employee appears rude to customers. Give the employee examples of how he appears rude. The employee needs to understand exactly what he's doing wrong.
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Praise the employee. To avoid making criticism seem negative, it's important to touch on the employee's strong points as well. For example, if the employee hands in sloppy, but accurate and information-filled reports, you could say "John, your reports are both informative and helpful to the company, but you're trying to complete them too fast. Take a moment and proofread future work prior to handing it in."
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Explain how the employee can improve on his shortcomings. When you constructively criticize someone, you must give him strategies to improve on his faults. For example, if an employee often comes in late, tell the employee to set his alarm for an earlier time, leave 15 minutes before he usually does or carpool with another employee.
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Ask the employee if you can personally be of assistance. Avoid placing the burden to improve completely on the employee. If you can help, do so.
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