The wrong way to give employees feedback

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Many managers treat performance reviews as the only time to provide guidance. That's nowhere near often enough.

I met with Alice Waagen, the president and founder of Herndon-based Workforce Learning to discuss performance management — the toughest part of being a manager.

What do most managers get wrong about performance management?

Providing consistent negative feedback is the main issue, as most managers are naturally uncomfortable with those conversations. For many companies and managers, performance reviews only consist of an annual appraisal, typically linked to a salary action. Many managers treat these as the only time to provide guidance. That's nowhere near often enough - feedback needs to be provided throughout the year. Otherwise it’s all saved up until a situation is egregiously messed up, and they’re forced into a painful meeting to provide a backlog of negative feedback.

How do you help managers get out of these painful situations?

First, realize that your goal is not to simply “deliver” performance feedback. Your goal is to actually improve performance. Your goal is to ensure your employee hears the message and changes their behavior, and that requires both more thought and less confrontation than simply delivering bad news and criticism.

So the goal is not to provide feedback, but to change behavior. What is the best strategy for that?

Effective performance management requires planning. Plan a meeting where you can discuss at most one to two key points. If your list is longer, provide feedback more frequently. And be sure to prioritize your issues. It helps remove the pressure of time, and gives you both the opportunity to dive into an issue and improve performance.

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