Dear Vicki: ‘My staff asked me for honest performance reviews, will they hate me if I tell them the truth?’

You should stage one-on-one meetings throughout the year to ease the burden of annual reviews. Photo: Getty

Vicki O'Toole

Question: As a small business owner, I find conducting annual performance reviews and giving constructive feedback incredibly stressful.

Last year, for example, one employee insisted that I give an honest appraisal of their work with recommendations on how they could improve. I gave what I considered to be a frank but fair appraisal of their year’s work, pointing out a few ways they could improve.