Managing People - Performance Reviews
How to conduct a Performance Review

How to conduct a Performance Review

Greeting

Start the review with a warm greeting and perhaps some very brief small talk to help relax tensions and create a more conducive atmosphere for the review.

Summary

Be sure that the employee understands exactly how his or her overall performance ranks. Summarize the overall performance first, and then explain what the rating means. Don’t announce any salary changes at this point. If you don’t give the summary at the beginning of the review, the employee will spend the rest of the review trying to figure out what his or her overall performance is, based on your comments.

The employee may want to discuss the rating immediately after you offer it. Try to put this off until you have been able to thoroughly review the employee’s strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths

Unless an employee’s performance is unsatisfactory, compliment him or her on both major and minor strengths as they relate to their job. Avoid saying anything negative until you have reviewed his or her strengths. You can be either specific or general in describing strengths.

Weaknesses

Unless an employee’s performance has been truly exceptional, you should provide feedback on areas of weakness, or at least suggest room for improvement. In reviewing weaknesses, be as specific as possible. For example, rather than saying “you have a poor attitude” cite a specific example of their behavior such as “you are often late for company meetings and several times throughout the year you complained incessantly about company policies.”

Feedback

After you have discussed an employee’s weaknesses, you should give him or her an opportunity to air their thoughts. Listen politely until the person is done. Avoid being argumentative, but do let the employee know that his or her feedback has not affected your review. For example, you may want to say “I understand that you don’t agree with what I have said, but my perception of your overall performance remains as I have stated it.”

Salary

Recap the employee’s overall performance rating. Announce the new salary, if any, and the date on which the new salary will be effective.

Closing

Unless the employee’s performance is substantially less than satisfactory, try to end the review on a positive note. You might say “The company and I very much appreciate your work, and we are glad to have you here!”