How to Ruin a Performance Review
Performance reviews are an essential part every employer’s strategy to build employee morale, and maintain optimum productivity in the workplace. When employees are regularly informed about how they are faring, they can improve their performance and reach the goals that you have set for them. For performance reviews to be used as an effective tool to reduce the risk of litigation against your company, you have to use them correctly.
Take performance reviews seriously. Allocate a certain amount of time for a review. A review is not something that you should get through with in a rush. Earmark a certain amount of time for every employee.
Santa Ana employment lawyers find that one of the major mistakes that employers make is to treat every review separately. If you treat every performance review as a new one, you will have no opportunity to deliver feedback on the issues that you raised during the last review. Instead, offer the employee feedback about all the areas that you brought to his attention during the last review, and evaluate how well his work has improved since.
Do not focus only on the most recent performance of the employee. While the employee may have hit a rough patch over the past month, he might have performed well over the course of the year. Focus on the good performance, and not necessarily only on the bumpy patch.
Never use performance reviews to focus only on the employee’s weaknesses. Use it to highlight positive performances, and to better his strengths.
Santa Ana employment lawyers also recommend that you be precise. Don’t be afraid of telling the employee about the areas that he needs to improve on. If you do not inform the employee, chances are he will never understand what is expected of him. As a result, when you’re forced to fire him for poor performance, he is likely to be surprised, and shocked, and could actually file a claim against you for wrongful termination.
Document, document and document. Ensure complete and stringent documentation of all the issues that are raised during the performance review. That ensures that if you are the target of litigation tomorrow, you have adequate proof about the fact that the employee was made aware of his shortcomings at work.
