Sharing is Caring

When the dreaded performance evaluation time approaches, managers and employees alike tend to get nervous. Employees may worry that a less than stellar evaluation means they are not performing or that they may not get a raise or promotion. Employers worry that if they give honest evaluations they may not be liked by their employees - and not even managers want to be ostracized. So, what do you do?

Share anyway.

A caring manager regularly shares expectations and outcomes throughout the year. In fact, a performance evaluation should never come as a surprise. If an employee is surprised at their review, they are either delusional, or the manager failed to provide truthful and timely feedback throughout the year. Usually, it is the latter. 

Besides regular feedback, another great way to manage expectations is to tell your direct reports at the earliest possible moment when you are assigned to supervise them how you rate employees. Just like grading bell curves in school, performance evaluations should also skew to the average. Truthfully, few employees will be excellent, especially in all categories. Likewise, few employees will be poor performers. Most will be very good, average, or the most likely selection - just plain ole good. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with being good, or even average for that matter. If employees understand how you plan to rate them early, they will be much less likely to be disappointed when they do not get an excellent evaluation year after year. 

Now as an attorney, I must say I have an ulterior motive for giving this advice. Few things are more frustrating than talking to a manager who says they either want to fire an employee or that they justifiably fired the employee and yet all of the (ex)employee's performance evaluations are overwhelmingly positive. This sends a huge mixed signal that does not go over well in court. 

Honesty is tough, but managerial courage is essential to good management. We will delve more deeply into managerial courage in an upcoming post. For now, just remember that good is great, and excellent is poor (or something like that)!