What is the biggest mistake in performance feedback/documentation?
- Lack of specific facts
- Getting employee to agree
- Not explaining impacts
- All of the above
The answer is d. Here’s a typical scenario:
Tim hires Andrea and is excited about her potential in her first year at the Company as she was heavily recruited out of grad school. Tim has a lot on his plate and not much time to coach and develop Andrea, who is expected to learn much on her own. In her midyear review, she receives a “favorable” rating. In the 2nd half of the year though, Andrea starts to disagree more with Tim on business processes. When she communicates that to him, he doesn’t take the feedback well. He wants her to trust him more and just do what he says. Meanwhile, she thinks business results are declining because of this issue, but he does not agree. She takes a medical leave of absence for an outpatient procedure. When she returns a month later, she experiences less feedback and communication from Tim. During her yearly review, she is shocked to see an overall rating of “unsatisfactory.” The review focuses on her “lack of collaboration,” and “failure to successfully adapt to the work environment.” It does not contain any specific facts, nor connect to how those issues impacted particular results. Andrea doesn’t trust Tim anymore and contacts a recruiter to look for a new job. She also considers raising an HR issue and/or contacting legal counsel as she thinks her medical leave had everything to do with the poor performance rating.
Does this sound like a scenario you’ve seen or experienced before? What is the cost of her leaving in one year? What is the cost of not addressing the manager’s lack of effective performance management? What is the cost of the potential litigation? How long and involved with the HR investigation take? What will the impact on morale and productivity be to his team if/when others start gossiping about what’s going on?
Employees often have the following questions:
- What is expected of me?
- How am I doing?
- Where are we headed?
- Why does it matter?
Good managers provide the answers to the questions throughout an employee’s career.
When those questions aren’t answered, employees are often disengaged and productivity suffers. Further, when the yearly review ends up being a surprise, and compensation is impacted negatively, those employees begin to look to transition out of the company. Sometimes the employee thinks it is a personal attack and/or discriminatory. This can cost a company from 1 to 4 times that individual’s salary to replace them, when you consider getting a requisition to hire, recruiting costs, onboarding and training costs, and lost productivity costs while the new person is getting up to speed. Plus, if morale is low, then managers and other staff may be reluctant to help acclimate the new person to the company and productivity goals continue to suffer. The legal costs can quickly escalate above $100,000 as well.
Managers need to understand how much their words and actions impact the bottom line when they fail to understand and implement successful performance management. If it only happened to 1 employee, it would be bad enough. But, if this manager is doing this to multiple employees, it becomes an epidemic.
If you recognize this manager(s) in your organization, you know that something needs to be done. Please contact me, and I’d be happy to discuss possible solutions.