How to Give Employees Performance Feedback
As an employer or supervisor, evaluating your employees for professionalism and the ability to perform their jobs satisfactorily is part of your job. The result of this evaluation needs to be distilled into valuable feedback you can deliver to your employees to help them understand where their strong and weak points lie. By giving your employees constructive feedback, you can encourage them to continue with their successes and help them overcome their weaknesses, which results in a stronger workforce.
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Instructions
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Monitor employee performance. Write down notes about individual performance, and keep these notes in employee files so you have ample information at performance review time. Depending on the company, review times can range from every three months to once a year. The information you collect will be the foundation of the performance review. Pay particular attention to employee work attendance, timeliness of job completion and the quality of the work employees finish. Other factors include professionalism on the job, including how employees interact with coworkers.
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Prepare an employee performance review. This will typically include all of the areas you'll review with your employee. Indicate the employee's level of performance next to each segment: Leadership, professionalism, job commitment and quality of work. Choices are typically "Outstanding," "Meets Expectations" or "Does Not Meet Expectations." The choices may be "Excellent," "Above Average," "Average" or "Below Average." Check the appropriate choices on the form and make a copy for your employee.
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Write supervisor notes for the employee on the performance review form. These notes can provide praise for the employee's work habits, positive reinforcement or detailed suggestions for how an employee can improve on weak spots. Include expectations for improvement by the next performance review.
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Meet with employees to go over the performance review. Read from the review itself while the employee reads along. Allow the employee to ask questions, and be ready to give your input regarding improvement. Sign and date the review and have your employee do the same. This will become a permanent part of your employee's file, and will also be a basis for comparison during the next performance review. Approach even negative aspects of the performance review in a positive manner, with emphasis on improving the employee's weak traits.
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Tips & Warnings
Rather than wait for the next review, touch base with the employee's immediate supervisor once a month to ensure the employee is doing well and improving where needed. This can reveal a weak performance early, and may allow you to correct it before another review period passes.
You want to work with employees to figure out ways to improve performance, but be aware of circular conversations - repeatedly going over the same ground. At these times, focus on ideas for improving performance to move the discussion forward and create an improvement plan. Don't let the time get away from you. Unless it's an exceptional situation, in most cases these meetings need not last longer than approximately 30 minutes.
