BLUSHING mumbles are acceptable on a number of occasions, including but not limited to: receiving inappropriately expensive gifts; walking in on your grandparents pretending they’re not too old to make babies; and being elected to Parliament. They should not, however, be seen or heard in the vicinity of any form of management-employee feedback situation. When you need to tell someone where they’re going wrong, your approach needs to be clear, straightforward and professional.
1. Don’t draw blood. Be honest, not brutal, says Colin Perkins, a senior partner at PSM (see box, right). Constructive criticism should help people to see how they can improve.
Advertisement
2. Help them to get better. “As manager you should provide sufficient support, whether technical or non-technical, to help the person to improve their performance,” says Andy Clare, the director of Shine (see box, right).
Advertisement
3. Don’t go crazy with praise in appraisals. “Manage expectations by ensuring that the employee is realistically but sensitively appraised of the true prospects for their personal development,” Perkins says. Back this up by adopting a coach approach: “Allow the employee to reach their own conclusions and make their own decisions, although you should highlight points for consideration.” Alternatively . . .
Advertisement
4. . . . be explicit. Clare says that if you’re unhappy with someone’s behaviour or work, tell them. No employment tribunal will accept that looking cross and saying “harumph” under your breath counted as a first warning. “In our experience the majority of managers rely on veiled threats or implicit messages,” Clare says, “but you have to be explicit, not euphemistic.” Clare also recommends telling your employee exactly what improvements you expect to see.
Advertisement
5. Pretend that you’re training puppies. Not literally; Clare isn’t advocating doggy biscuits or a pat on the head for shaking hands. His point is that day-to-day feedback should be given as soon as possible after the behaviour or incident that’s caught your attention.
6. It’s OK to do it in public. If you’re giving someone practical advice on a technical issue — say, a faster way of using the company’s database to prepare reports — your employee should not feel embarrassed for not knowing. “And it might be useful for others to over- hear the information,” Clare says. “Plus it’s good for you to be seen coaching staff.”
Advertisement
7. Sometimes you need to be discreet. It’s usually more appropriate to give behaviour-related feedback in private, Clare says.
8. Tie the behaviour to the business. Simply saying “your excessive swearing is offensive” isn’t enough, Clare says, because your foul-mouthed employee might simply write it off as you being a fuddy-duddy. Better to say “your excessive swearing can be overheard by our customers when they are on the phone to your colleagues, and this is costing us sales”.
9. Keep a record. Effective feedback should help employees to work out how to pick their wet towels up from the bathroom floor and get on with the job, but if it doesn’t, there’s no harm having the paperwork that shows that you tried.
10. Be gentle with rejects. But be honest: tell failed candidates exactly why they didn’t get the job, and how they could get the skills they lack.
FIND OUT MORE