by J. Henry Stewart

Created on: September 15, 2009

John walked into the nicely furnished office of Susan, his boss for the last eighteen months. It was time for his performance appraisal and he was a little nervous. However, he no longer had the dread that used to blanket him at the yearly performance review time when he worked at his old company.

Susan took a quite concrete approach to each of her subordinates' performance appraisals, and her unit was producing more effectively than ever. Susan kept three main ideas in mind when she wrote and shared each performance appraisal with her worker.

Concrete and Relevant Evaluation

The most important idea that Susan followed was to keep the appraisal concrete and relevant. For example, John had been assigned three main projects over the past year, and she directed all of her comments in the context of those three projects.

She did not write about "John's attitude" in a general sense, but rather indicated that while completing project A, John was quite diligent based on his consistent early completions of milestones within that particular project.

Furthermore, Susan referenced specific instances when she evaluated John in any way. She could do this because she had kept detailed notes along the way. Additionally, John was not surprised in any of these comments from Susan because she had shared with John at the specific moment if she thought something should have been done differently, or if he had completed a task in a particularly efficient manner.

Fair and Clear Feedback

Throughout the year, Susan praised John when he did his work well, and told him when he made a mistake and what he should do in the future. Many years later John remembered this excellent character trait of Susan, and he reminisced how rare it was for a boss to be so straight-forward and clear.

Susan had many other good qualities, but it was her completely transparent manner of communication that earned her the most respect from her workers. Susan always prepared what she was going to say ahead of time, and this allowed her to communicate in an exceptionally clear manner to her team members.

The Employee Matters

Susan knew that her job as boss was to accomplish the work of the company as efficiently as possible, and part of motivating her employees to work hard meant showing genuine concern for their interests.

John appreciated that the performance appraisal was a time for discussion; it was not simply a lecture from Susan. She actively listened to his concerns and ideas, and she was then able to give him guidance about his future career plans. Susan had ten years more of experience than John, and she willingly shared her wisdom when she thought that it would be useful to him.

Susan demonstrated, employees as well as companies gain from performance appraisals if the boss focuses on what matters. Susan knew what mattered because of her experience and education, and the employee and employer each benefited.

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