You need to give an employee some feedback about their performance, but how do you do this without upsetting them?
Follow our easy steps to feedback.
Have a private conversation. If you’re giving someone feedback that isn’t positive, you don’t really want to tell the whole office about this. So, arrange a quiet room for the two of you to sit down and discuss the concerns.
Keep it factual. If an employee has made a mistake on something, then show them the error and talk through with them. Take in copies of the evidence with you as they will want to see it.
Offer your support and training. It may be that no one has explained this to them before, so they didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to ask. Offer them further support or training so that they won’t make the same mistake again
Watch your tone. While it can be easy for some of us to slip into the role of parent, it can come across as patronizing for employees. So be mindful of your tone. They are adults and they’ve made a mistake – they just need some guidance.
Agree a way forward. Agree with the employee how you will move forward from this. It could be that you need to arrange training, they may already know the process but made a silly mistake so have agreed to be more careful. If you’ve agreed a period of monitoring that is more than normal, then make sure you follow up on this.
Shouting. There’s nothing worse than being shouted at in work because you’ve made a mistake. No one reacts well to being shouted at, so keep your cool
Making it personal. Imagine you’ve made a mistake and someone tells you that you are stupid because of it? It’s not nice and it won’t help. Keep it factual.
Not agreeing a way to move on. It’s great that you’ve highlighted the problem, but unless you agree with the employee how to stop it happening again, then things won’t get better. Make sure you have agreed how to stop it happening again.
If you'd like more advice - contact us on 02920 090500.