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   Performance Appraisals found in Money & Business  :  Business Skills A   A   A
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Tips for Successful Performance Appraisal Meetings

As a supervisor, you must conduct performance appraisal meetings with extreme care to avoid making the employee feel offended, hurt, or misrepresented. To make your appraisal meetings as productive and nonconfrontational as possible, use the following techniques:
  • Preparation: Come to the meeting with all of the documents and anecdotal examples you need to support your view of the employee’s performance.
  • Scheduling: Inform the employee well in advance of the scheduled date and time. Give the employee ample time to assemble relevant documents and materials.
  • Location: Use a private conference room rather than a personal office or cubicle. Taking this step puts the meeting on neutral territory, which can reduce tension.
  • Purpose: Never veer from the main objective of the meeting—to provide constructive feedback and set performance goals for the future.
  • Tone: Maintain a professional, even-tempered tone throughout the meeting. Be positive and encouraging, never hostile, disappointed, or disapproving.
  • Communication: Don’t dominate the meeting. Allow the employee to respond and ask questions.
  • Confrontation: Avoid heated exchanges. If the employee needs to “vent,” let him or her vent and then move the conversation in a positive direction.
  • Personality: Focus exclusively on employee performance, not on personality traits.
  • Outlook: Keep discussions about negative past performance to a minimum. Instead, discuss present weaknesses in the context of explaining how to fix them in the future.
  • Positivity: Start and end the meeting with positive, encouraging words.

How to Resolve Problems at Appraisal Meetings

Even when you have the best intentions and follow the above guidelines closely, an employee may disagree with your appraisal, which can result in a tense and unproductive situation. Yet even the most heated situations can be defused with certain resolution strategies. The following table lists common issues that you may encounter when conducting performance appraisal meetings and suggests strategies for resolving them.

 
Issue
  
Suggested Resolution
Your view of the employee’s performance is mostly negative
  
  • Don’t avoid criticism, but don’t dwell too much on the past.
  • Position your views as constructive criticism. Tell the employee how to improve.
  • Be specific and encouraging.
Employee feels that the appraisal fails to represent his or her work fairly or accurately
  
  • Meet first with employees who performed well to hone your appraisal meeting technique.
  • To anticipate problems, review the appraisal form from the employee’s point of view before the meeting.
  • Begin discussion with areas of agreement and higher ratings.
  • Provide specific examples to support your criticism.
Employee becomes angry, withdraws, or cries
  
  • Acknowledge the reaction with phrases such as “You’re clearly getting quite upset.”
  • Give the employee a moment to compose him- or herself.
  • If the employee is out of control, end the meeting, reschedule, and talk to management or HR for advice and support.
Employee makes excuses for poor performance
  
  • Don’t argue or reject the employee’s excuses.
  • Put the responsibility back on the employee. For instance, say, “I agree that you had tight deadlines, but you knew that when the project began.”
  • Discuss the need to make changes, not excuses.
Employee goes off on tangents or introduces irrelevant points
  
  • Don’t accuse the employee of making irrelevant or unimportant points—doing so will provoke frustration and anger.
  • Redirect the conversation to a concrete issue, such as, “I’d like to talk about your schedule. It’s important for you to be here eight hours a day.”
Employee is significantly older than his or her supervisor, or employee and supervisor are friends
  
  • Follow the same guidelines for all employees, regardless of the nature of your relationship.
  • Focus on the main objective: to assess and review the employee’s performance.
 
 
 
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