Comments on: How to Give an Effective Employee Evaluation

on 7/6/2009 hi friend .thanks for sharing even though i don't know if it usefull for me

on 4/16/2009 Great advice. The last warning says it all. This should not be new news to the employee. Ongoing conversations throughout the year should be taking place. The conversation should be professional, productive and part of the continuous employee development.

on 3/8/2009 I've been an HR for 3 years. This is good advice. very good. 5*

on 1/25/2008 Remember, very few things are black in white. Your schedule isn't which is why cancellations and postponements happen, and neither is the "never cancel or postpone an evaluation" guideline given in the first comment. Same goes for the goal of not surprising an employee during a review. If you value your staff then you'd make following these guidelines a priority, as far as is practical. The original comment's author wasn't being pedantic, and neither should you.

on 6/6/2007 Never cancel or postpone an evaluation? Thats great advice. Especially since this is a business situation where everything always goes as planned. (extreme sarcasm) Most of what is in this post on how to is not in the real world. Conceptually it all sounds good, but that's just not how it all goes. There is no basic set of rules that applies in whole to employee evaluations. Also, to say that during a review an employee should never be hearing about a problem for the first time is ridiculous. Good advice would be to be a manager and do reviews for awhile before making statements like this.

on 8/16/2006 High performers are commonly their own worst critics, and depending on the informal feedback they receive in the normal course of performing their job duties, will expect to hear their own internal criticisms repeated and amplified.

In environments where communications between management and employees are infrequent, sterile, or commonly negative, these individuals are prone to read more into the administrative scheduling of an evaluation than management might intend. Schedule evaluations during the first three days of an employee's work-week and during the first half of an their shift, before their meal break, to minimize an employee's apprehension. If possible and appropriate, take them to lunch after the evaluation or give a gift card to a restaurant so they can go out.

Finally, never cancel or postpone (more than a few hours) an evaluation meeting once it is set. For some managers, a postponement will tell the employee exactly how important and appreciated they are. Leaving the manager with a human distillery (i.e., your good people evaporate and condense elsewhere leaving nothing but useless sludge).