How good are you with providing performance feedback to your employees?

• It is very important for employees to receive regular feedback regarding their performance.  This should come in a variety of ways.  Something most people do not do enough of is to give their people positive feedback when they do good work.  Just letting them know when you see them do good work is very rewarding to them and has a positive impact on their performance.  Also, when you see unsatisfactory work you should also let them know that you are not pleased.  If you find that the majority of your feedback is negative this could be a sign of a bigger issue that needs to be addressed.  Examples could be that they are not in the right job, they have not been properly trained or expectations are not clear.  It is important to identify and address whatever the issue is because continuously complaining to an employee lowers their morale and reduces productivity with them and others.

• Besides giving ongoing performance feedback to employees they also need to be given a formal performance review.  This is typically an annual event but should be more frequent for new employees and employees with significant performance problems.  Two things are required to do this properly.  The first is a need for a job description which describes expectations at a high level.  The second is to have specific goals that the person is to accomplish.  I have previously written blog articles describing both of these.  There are different phases to a performance review.  These are listed below with comments regarding each:
  

1. Planning:
   • Feedback needs to be obtained from others that work with the person
   • A form needs to be filled out and a template that can be used is attached
2. Conducting:
   • The actual review with the employee
   • Discuss performance in each area
   • Provide an overall rating
• Discuss strengths and weaknesses
3. Development plans
   • Develop a specific plan for addressing the areas where improved performance is needed.
   • Schedule and have follow-up sessions to ensure that the plan is being implemented.

I suggest trying this with one employee to evaluate its effectiveness.  If that is a positive experience then utilize it with others.