Some bosses are afraid to reprimand, others are uncomfortable giving positive reinforcement. Both tasks are necessary and if performed in an unsatisfactory way can hurt your relationship with your employees.
Take note throughout the year when an employee does something impressive or does something that needs corrected. If you do this you’ll be less likely to feel the need to scramble to come up with something to say. The more specific you can be in your corrections or compliments the better.
Some managers find it helpful to provide praise in group meetings. Employees like to be recognized in front of their peers and it will give their peers a role model and encourage them to step up to the plate. Regardless of how your provide praise, employee’s efforts too often go unnoticed so performance reviews can be a great time to praise your employees. This will help improve your retention rates, boost confidence within your employees and will likely make your office a more pleasant place to work.
If you feel like annual reviews are too taxing and aren’t effective try semi-annual or quarterly reviews. You may see better results and you’ll have less ground you’ll need to cover. Increasing the frequency of performance reviews will also give employees the opportunity to compare their performance now to their performance in the past. Additionally it will give your employees the opportunity to raise important questions and bring any concerns to you without having to feel uncomfortable.
It is important that negative feedback be given in a private setting. Make sure that your employees take your concerns seriously. A good way to do this is to have something written down. It is key that you deal with the small issues when they arise otherwise they are likely to turn into big things. If you let a bunch of small mistakes slide they will likely build up into one big mistake. Most employees like to know how they are doing and are happy to correct their behavior. It can feel hurtful if you let them continue on making the same mistake and let them know at the end of the year that this was the wrong way of doing things. An employee cannot improve on something unless you tell them it needs improvement. Thus don’t use your performance reviews as the only time to raise concerns, instead use your performance reviews as a time to talk about how they’ve doing adjusting their work to meet your concerns.
Frequent performance reviews may mean more work on your behalf but they’ll also likely mean better work on behalf of your employees. So take the time to make performance reviews count and consider increasing the frequency with which you give them.
Robert Boroff Executive Profile Managing Director Reaction Search International
- Uses over 17 years of industry experience to provide clients with proven recruiting strategies that garner results
- Leads a team of Executive Recruiters in fulfilling clients important hiring needs in a time and cost-effective manner
- Keeps abreast of business and market trends in order to effectively consult clients on their hiring requirements
- Skilled at using traditional and contemporary recruiting practices
- Experienced in recruiting for a dynamic mix of industries, including Banking, Biotechnology, Construction, Consumer Products, Finance, Food & Beverage,Healthcare, Human Resources, Information Technology,Insurance,Marketing, and Medical Device, Pharmaceutical, Retail, Sales,Telecommunicationsexecutive search & recruitment
- Seasoned in running full-size searches on a national scale that require multiple hirings under time-sensitive schedules
management skills, effective management, employee relations, employee wellness, workplace environment, managing, employee retention
The Executive Search Consultants at Reaction Search International Executive Recruiters Sales successfully placing top performing candidates since 1995