When it comes to performance reviews, one major problem a lot of managers face is giving constructive feedback to their employees. This is a pretty sensitive time for a lot of us, whether we are in the employee’s position or the manager’s. As a leader of the team, we want to make sure that we are not making our subordinates feel bad while being able to clearly and concisely put our message across to them.

This is why it is vital to make sure that the feedback you are giving is constructive, and well put so that your employees do not take it personally. There are a couple of ways that will help you ensure that you are going the right way when it comes to giving employee performance feedback.

Do performance reviews frequently

Without understanding how the performance reviews work you cannot fully benefit from it, and neither can your employees. There are some important elements of performance reviews that need to be considered to fully benefit from them. Performance review examples should happen more frequently. You can go for monthly or quarterly performance reviews.

Try not to make it an annual thing because that can be difficult to manage and improving skills midway will yield better results.

Make it future-focused Performance reviews should be future-focused. Managers mustn’t dwell on the past too much. This can be degrading for the employees, and also a waste of time. As a manager, you should focus more on the future and help set achievable objectives for the employees.

Build trust with your team

Make the entire performance reviews process transparent with your employees. Let them know at the very start that you will be conducting these, and how they can be prepared for it. This will allow the employees to trust you more, and they won’t feel attacked when the process starts.

Don’t use feedback to micromanage your employees

You do not need to manage them on the smallest mistakes that they have made. Nobody likes to micromanage, and so make sure that your feedback is more precise rather than incredibly detailed.

If there are certain things you feel you can let go of then, do so. However, it is only the aspects that you feel could be detrimental to the company that should be pointed out.

Understand the importance of performance reviews goals

Unless you do not understand the importance of performance review goals, you cannot give them. It is not just a task that you have to do, performance reviews are one of the core aspects of progress within the organization.

Take out the time to understand how it can affect your employee (on an individual level), your team, and the entire organization. That will help you watch your words and approach towards the performance reviews process.

Give constructive feedback often

Now don’t go overboard with this – but do not have your employees feel suddenly bombarded with so much information about themselves and their Agile performance management in the organization.

However, make sure you are not doing it too often, and on the smaller things otherwise, it will start to look like you are nagging them, leading the employees to not take your feedback seriously.

Don’t shy away from negative feedback

Negative feedback, if given constructively does not always have to be a bad thing. If your employees are doing something wrong then you will need to let them know. This is for the long-term betterment of the company, and the employees themselves.

Be respectful, Several managers think that performance reviews are their chance to yell at their employees, or make rude comments because they possibly “deserve it”. However that does not yield good results whatsoever, it instills animosity within the employees and could even result in employee turnover.

Be very clear on the “why” behind the performance review goals, this is important to do at the very start when the employee is joining the company. Let them know the intentions behind the performance evaluation, how it will help the company and them. Get them to understand that it is nothing to do with them, but instead for the development of the company.

Focus on the behaviors, not the personality

Again, as we talked about before, you must focus on the behavior of the person rather than their personality. By this, we mean that rather than saying something like “you are lazy”, say something along the lines of “you need to manage your time better”. This makes the whole thing significantly less personal and allows the employees to retain the feedback.

Give them the right resources

You do not only get to critique your employees’ work of Performance Reviews but also provide them with the resources that will help them improve. You can use the performance evaluation software for this, which usually comes instilled with lessons and tests for your employee’s performance review examples to improve with. It will also help you mark how your employees are working on themselves, and you can use that as a reference for future reviews.