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Performance Appraisal Criticism and Appreciation

Why are performance appraisals seen to be negative experiences?

Isn’t a performance appraisal simply a meeting between a manager and a member of his or her staff, where together they appraise the staff member’s performance during the year .

But in reality, many managers handle performance appraisals quite poorly.

In fact, there are five big mistakes that managers often make in conducting performance appraisals. Fortunately, these mistakes are easily avoided once you make a conscious effort to avoid them.

• Mistake#1: Waiting For the Performance Appraisal to Give Feedback: It’s where a manager fails to give someone adequate feedback on their performance during the year, and then dumps it on them in the performance appraisal meeting.

Unfortunately, the feedback is almost always negative, so the employee ends up sitting there in shock — at best, wondering why his or her manager didn’t say something sooner; at worst, and feeling unjustly victimized.

And you have to wonder — how can a manager expect an employee to do the right things

The solution: make it a habit to tell your employees if they’ve done a good or poor job, and    if it’s a poor job, explain how they can do things better in the future.

There should be no surprises in the performance appraisal!

• Mistake #2: Overemphasizing Recent Performances: This can lead to an inaccurate and unfair assessment when it comes to reviewing an employee’s performance.

To avoid overemphasizing an employee’s recent work, take note — and ideally take notes — of the employee’s work throughout the year.

• Mistake #3: Being Too Positive or Negative: Some managers feel uncomfortable giving negative feedback and consequently, can omit to give employees the constructive criticism they need to improve. And then there are other managers who are instinctively too negative, leaving the employee wondering if they can do anything right!
• Mistake #4: Being Critical without Being Constructive: Following on from Mistake #3, some managers can be too critical and neglect to provide any constructive advice on how an employee can improve.

This doesn’t help the employee or the manager. Even if your criticisms all have merit, if you don’t explain how the employee can improve, he or she is likely to miss the validity of what’s being said and simply think he or she is being victimized. Not to mention the fact that his or her performance won’t actually improve.

• Mistake #5: Talking Not Listening: The final big mistake that managers make in performance appraisals is doing too much talking and not enough listening.

These meetings are supposed to be interactive — where the manager doesn’t simply listens to the employees.

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