Video:How to Review an Employee's Performance

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Transcript:How to Review an Employee's Performance

While it's often the employee who is nervous about an upcoming performance review, it's also not easy being in the shoes of the person giving the review.

Tips for How to Review an Employee's Performance

Performance reviews often involve emotions due to raises, bonuses, promotions, or suspensions or worse that may be on the line. But here's a way to make your review effective and productive. An employee performance review not only helps the company determine the performance level of each employee in terms of what they are delivering, but it also pinpoints areas for improvement. This helps a company plan the right amount of training as well as to determine what else can motivate talent to meet company objectives. These reviews also help employees to know where they stand and what they could do better. Clearly, they are very important and necessary to both the employee and the company's success.

Information About How to Review an Employee's Performance

Just remember that the employee performance review doesn't start when you write it up or when you give it. This is an ongoing process that should begin early. Take notes along the way as you observe the employee over many months and keep these as a reference. Preparing the review will be so much easier if you have this information at the ready.

Additional Resources for How to Review an Employee's Performance

Be sure to familiarize yourself with the employee review categories from the form your company uses. These categories will help you organize your notes and keep you on task when it comes time to conduct the review. Plan out specific examples for each category to create a clear picture as to why you've drawn certain conclusions about the employee's performance. Once you've gathered your information and spent time prior to the review on preparation and organization of your thoughts, it's important to know how you should conduct yourself during the employee review meeting.

Start the review with a greeting and a few lines to ease the tension that the employee and you may likely feel. Lead into the review with a summary so that employee can get a sense of what the overall conclusion will be. This is not the time to talk about the results of that performance in terms of any salary changes, bonuses, or promotions. While the employee may want to immediately respond to the rating or overall conclusion, especially if what they hear does not seem favorable, respectfully hold them off until the feedback session. This occurs after you review the strengths and weaknesses of the employee in detail.Be sure to be complimentary when discussing strengths, noting where they are a real asset to the company and even where they might have improved over the prior review. You can be general or you can highlight specific examples of strengths. Then, it is onto the weaknesses. Even if the review is completely positive, it is important to always set out areas where development and growth are possible. This is an ideal time to discuss goals to reach for the next review. If the review is leading toward the conclusion that performance has been poor, details about why this is the case must be very specific.

Finally, it's time for feedback. This is where the employee can share his or her perspective. Be polite and avoid argumentation at all costs. End on a positive note whether it's the announcement of a new salary or other benefit, and be sure to also emphasize how much the employee is valued. If the review has determined poor performance, focus on how you can work together on improvements.

I'm Jonathon Stewart, with About.com.