Delaware Employment Law Blog

Ahh, feedback.  It’s a tricky pill to swallow, isn’t it? When performance-review time comes around and you’re making a list of all of the areas in which you want your employees to improve, maybe you should ask yourself a few questions first. Have you really done everything that you can to address problems as they arise? Or have you waited until formal reviews to bring up those little problems that have become bigger problems?

The best leaders know that regular feedback is essential to an effective working relationship.

If you are looking for a creative way to get and receive feedback, there’s a website for you.  BetterMe gives users a way to give “private, anonymous feedback.”  You can give feedback to anyone—even if they’re not registered with the site.  You can also ask for feedback from others.  Good idea?  Well, an interesting one, indeed.

“Get Rid of the Performance Review!” That was the title of an article in Monday’s WSJ. I’m certain many employees read the headline and thought, “If only it were that easy.” In the article, author Samuel A. Culbert promotes nixing the tired annual performance review in favor of a “preview.”

His message is simple: instead of looking back, think about what’s going to happen next. The essence is that instead of reviewing what your employees did, consider what they are going to do and how they will achieve their goals in the future. It’s sensible and makes good business sense to have your employees think about what they are going to do better, not what already happened that can’t be fixed. Culbert rightly advocates that a boss should “guide, coach tutor, provide oversight and generally do whatever is required to assist a subordinate to perform successfully.”

But, because of the anxieties associated with a performance review, that goal is lost to things like concerns over pay raises and disruptions to teamwork. In Culbert’s alternative, a preview becomes an exercise in problem-solving and promotes discussions among teammates who are going to work together more effectively and efficiently than in the past. A preview focuses on the future, and, according to Culbert, “promotes straight-talk relationships for people who are up to it.” Although a preview may not be for the fainthearted, it can be a useful mechanism to re-tool your old performance review checklist in favor of a more dynamic activity aimed at promoting employee and business development.

Performance reviews and evaluations are a sensitive topic for employers and employees, alike. Diligent, thoughtful managers, want to craft the most accurate and effective employee evaluations without triggering hostility or damaging relationships. How to word a performance evaluation is a major source of mystery for most everyone. It's difficult to give "sample" language for use on an employee evaluation. The better approach is to start with the actual evaluation system that is in place. Does it meet the needs of your organization? More importantly, do reviewers actually understand how to use it? And do they all understand it in the same way?

For those of you brave enough to tackle your company's performance-evaluation system, I applaud you! It's a very worthwhile effort, even if you meet great resistance. Below, I discuss the four basic types of rating systems. Once you know how you want to rate, then you can decide what you want to rate. Put the two together, and you're off to the races.

There are variety of ways to rate an employee’s performance. Generally, though, there are four common approaches used by the majority of businesses. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Below is a summary of the four types. The benefits and pitfalls will be discussed in a subsequent post.

Numerical Rating. Each attribute or objective is rated with a number, usually on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest level of performance.

Evaluation. The employee is rated on his or her level of performance for the targeted objectives. Words such as Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, and Superior are commonly used to rate how the employee performs each objective. Other language may include Distinguished, Superior, Fully Satisfactory, Fair, and Incompetent. In this model, the employee is not rated against anyone but himself and the reviewer’s expectations.

Behavioral Frequency. In this system, a list of targeted behaviors are identified and assigned a frequency, with the most frequent representing the highest level of achievement. An example might be: “Employee submits monthly budgets in a timely and complete fashion.” And the ratings may range from Rarely, to Sometimes, to Frequently, to Usually, to Always.

Comparison-Based. This rating system compares the performance of the employee to a pre-determined standard. For example, the employee may Meet the Standard, Exceed the Standard, Partially Meet the Standard, and so forth.

See also: It's hard to write a good employee evaluation. Get over it.

Employee performance reviews are hard, aren't they? Much fuss is made about them--by senior management, by HR, by Legal, and, of course, by the employee receiving the review. Get over it.  That's what separates managers from non-managers. 

Writing a performance review is a learned skill and requires a lot of practice to get even close to getting them "right."  Yet, many (or most) companies fail to provide training to supervisors on how to prepare an effective and legally compliant employee performance review.  If you're one of those companies, do yourself a favor and start that training now.  If you're a supervisor in one of those companies, here's the top 3 things you can do now to write a better performance evaluation. 

1.  Be [Painfully] Honest. 

Do not sugar-coat your comments.  Yes, it can hurt to give a less-than stellar performance review.  Too bad--it's your job.  And it's also in your own best interest.  Just ask any supervisor who's had to testify in a discrimination case brought by a former employee where the cross-examination went like this:

Q:  Mr. Jones, why did you terminate Mr. Smith?

A:  Because Mr. Smith was a terrible employee.

Q:  Can you give the jury some examples of the terrible conduct?

A:  Oh, sure.  He was always late.  He didn't get along with any of his co-0workers and was always causing disagreements in the office.  He was disrespectful and insubordinate, making inappropriate comments to me and other managers regularly. 

Q: Anything else?

A:  Yes, actually.  He had an overall terrible attitude.  He was not a team player.  He refused to help his coworkers.  Just overall hostile to everyone.

Q:  I'd like to move in Plaintiff's Exhibit 8, please.  Mr. Jones, can you please tell the Court what that document is that I've just entered into evidence?

A:  This is Mr. Smith's performance evaluation.  This was the last one I wrote for him--probably about 4 months before he was fired.

Q:  And what rating did you give Mr. Smith in this employee performance evaluation?

A:  "Satisfactory."

Q:  So, Mr. Jones, were you lying then or are you lying now?

2.  Use Your Big-Boy [or -Girl] Words

We know you've got some in that vocabulary of yours.  Otherwise, they wouldn't have made you a big-boy [or -girl] boss.  Well, this is the time to use them.  And we're not talking about big words, as in the number of letters.  We're talking about descriptive words.  Words that actually describe some action, attitude, incident, or conduct.

My second-grade English teacher prohibited the use of "very", "clearly", "nice" and "good."  Why?  Because they've lost meaning through overuse.  The same applies to you.  Heck, go crazy and grab that dust-covered thesaurus from your bookshelf (or just use an online thesaurus and save yourself the allergies). 

I'll even get you started with some examples:

Don't write:  Bob has good communication skills.

Do write:  Bob generated several well-written memos during the budgeting process that were particularly useful in guiding our assessment decisions. 

Or, write:  During planning meetings, Bob actively listens to his coworkers without disruption and, when appropriate, shares his position candidly but respectfully.

 

Don't write:  Jessica's sales numbers last quarter were very good.

Do write:  Last quarter, Jessica exceeded her projected sales by 18%.

Or write:  Jessica's sales have increased by at least 12% for the last 5 quarters--far exceeding the levels of sustained increased demonstrated by her colleagues.

 

Don't write:  Ron needs to improve his attention to detail.

Write:  Although Ron's work is submitted promptly, he seems to compromise accuracy for timeliness.  The finishing details of his projects, such as the final budget calculations, frequently contain errors.

Or write:  In an attempt to be as thorough as possible, Ron's reports often contain more data than is necessary.  This results in a cluttered presentation, which appears cluttered and disorganized.  Some additional attention given to the aesthetic of the report will prevent this problem. 

 

3.  Prove It.

That's right.  Don't just say it.  Back it up.  Give a specific example for each area you're asked to comment on.  Too difficult?  If you can't articulate a specific example, then don't write it.  If called on later to support the evaluation, it's a sure bet that you won't be able to produce any examples then.  So write it down now. 

It also gives you credibility with the employee.  Without examples, what makes you think the employee is going to believe you?  He thinks he is a great employee.  Do you think he'll change his mind with a comment like, "improve attention to detail"?  Doubtful.  On the other hand, if you spell it out with real examples, including how the employee's conduct impacted his co-workers, the team, or the organization as a whole, it's a lot more difficult to challenge the validity of the review. 

I know you're getting the hang of it now, so I'll give just one example. 

Instead of:  Jackie's attendance needs improvement. 

Try:  Jackie has been absent 8 times this quarter--far exceeding the 2 absences permitted by company policy.  More troubling is that, on 6 of the 8 occasions, Jackie called out of work just before her shift started.  These unplanned absences require her supervisor to find a substitute at the last minute.  Not only is this an inconvenience to her coworkers, but it often requires the company to pay the substitute at a premium hourly rate, which is an unnecessary and avoidable expense.