Leading Constructive Appraisal Conversations

The biggest misconception about appraisal conversations is that they’re a formal, specific event to be scheduled periodically and simply checked off the task list once completed. It’s not so much the time interval that is the issue; it is the way managers think about and approach these conversations. 

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Before approaching an appraisal conversation, it is important to remember the responsibilities that you hold as a people manager. These could include clarifying the organization’s vision, setting and meeting goals, ensuring that the team is on track and hitting milestones, taking care of the team’s mental and emotional welfare, and so on. 

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Conducting appraisal conversations is just a small part of these responsibilities. But the underlying factor that ties in all this is the ability to connect and communicate with the team. It is from this aspect that you should approach appraisal conversations – understanding that it is something that should be weaved into daily conversations tactfully and respectfully, and not relegated to being a one-off special occasion.

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Appraisal conversations are part of a continuous flow of dialogue and feedback about project statuses, tasks completed and left outstanding, and any related developments or updates. Naturally, the subject of an employee’s performance will surface. If you make an observation about an employee’s behaviour or performance that needs to be addressed, there is no reason to wait till a formal performance review before bringing it up. Instead, address it in a timely manner, as this is when your feedback is most effective.

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Navigating Emotional Situations

Performance management is inevitably an emotional process, and you can start by accepting the fact that you may have to deal with emotional reactions. Where it gets tricky is if both parties are unfamiliar with each other, don’t have a close working relationship, and don’t feel comfortable discussing heavier topics. 

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As a manager, the onus is on you to manage the process so that both parties emerge from the session in an uplifted and empowered state. This does not mean completely avoiding difficult conversations or trying to force a positive atmosphere all the time. It simply means being deliberate and thoughtful about things. 

Tailoring Your Feedback

To tailor your feedback effectively, you’ll need to know each of your team members personally. What are their goals? What are they striving for? What drives them? What are they aspiring for? Knowing these details will help you be more emotionally sensitive to your team members and figure out how to position your feedback. 

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For instance, an employee who has never received a bonus before and receives 130% this cycle will likely feel proud, accomplished, and satisfied with their performance. Another employee received a bonus of 130% previously. This year, he or she only receives 120%. While it is still a bonus and a healthy one at that, this employee may see it as a drop in performance and feel demoralized. It is inevitable that your team will consist of a mix of people. So, managers have to be very tactful and know who exactly they are dealing with when it comes to sensitive feedback. 

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Another tricky situation is having a conversation when an employee who has been expecting a promotion did not get promoted. You can use the framing effect to your advantage in tricky situations. Essentially, it is positioning your feedback based on who the receiver is and what the situation is. This includes putting yourself in your employee’s shoes and thinking about how they would feel when you decide how to deliver your feedback. Let’s say that you have to tell each employee that only 10% of the team got promoted. You could phrase this in two different ways. The first is that only 10% got promoted. People hearing this are likely to think that they completely missed out and might feel demoralised as a result. The second way to frame this is that 90% of the team didn’t get promoted. Framing it this way helps people see that since 90% of the team didn’t get promoted, they didn’t really miss out, and that perhaps this round of promotions was just more selective. 

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You’ll also have to cater to various personalities. Some people prefer to talk hard numbers and facts upfront. These personalities want a black and white picture of whether they made the promotion or not, how many made it, and where they stood. Other employees need to be treated more delicately and not bluntly presented with harsh truths. To such people, you can consider explaining that not everything about them fell below expectations. Perhaps the metrics for evaluation laid in the employee’s areas of weaknesses, but this employee may have other strengths that were out of the spectrum of evaluation. Customizing feedback will lead to better assimilation, appreciation, and application of feedback. 

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If you’re not sensitive to these different situations occurring in the team, especially to those who are feeling down, you’ll likely need to deal with more emotionally charged, confrontational and heated moments during an appraisal conversation which can lead to other consequences like low team morale, a weaker bond, and a further drop in performance. 

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If you’ve set the stage by giving regular feedback, it’s highly likely that you’re not going to be faced with unpleasant surprises during a more detailed appraisal conversation. It is also important to continue to remind your team and emphasize on the fact that not everything to do with employee performance will be binary.

The first mistake managers commonly make during appraisal conversations is not including actionable feedback. Actionable feedback would explain how employees are evaluated and what they can do to better their performance through practical and relevant steps. 

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Many performance evaluation metrics include vague terms such as “good communication skills,” that are not clear in meaning. What does good mean? What do communication skills encompass? These rubrics need to be clearly explained to each individual in your team so that they know exactly where they are falling short in and what they should be working towards. New employees are unlikely to understand these parameters anyway, and long-term employees may have just gone along with these jargons without ever fully understanding them.

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The second mistake is not understanding that feedback needs to be a two-way street. Employees should be able to understand and appreciate what is being said and own what they need to do after receiving the feedback. The mistake is when people managers share the feedback hoping and assuming that the employee has understood it only to realize months down the road that it was just that – an assumption. 

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This phenomenon also occurs in large organisations where there is a strong culture of rating an employee’s performance on a numeric scale. In such situations, employees start fixating on that number and aiming to get a higher score each time without really understanding what the number actually entails. When managers reinforce this by highlighting the math behind performance management, they are detracting from the focus of the discussion which should be on ways to improve employees’ performance. It’s important, for example, for managers to clarify what a three means, and what is the gap between a three and a four. If an employee is already at the highest score, explaining what is the next level that they can start to work towards? 

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The third mistake managers make is not adequately acknowledging and praising an employee’s good performances. Many managers tend to only focus on the shortfalls and the target numbers, KPIs, sales numbers, customer calls, and other expectations that were not met. This creates a state of negativity in employees that may only serve to hinder their growth, chip away at their self-esteem and even make them feel unworthy. This frame of mind isn’t going to make them grow or be productive.  Acknowledgment goes a long way in boosting morale and motivation. The last thing you want is for somebody to feel low-spirited and demoralized because nobody acknowledged their moments of success. 

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Creating Milestones with Your Team

Building milestones for employees is beneficial for both strong and weak performance. Think of these milestones as the journey to a destination. For instance, in a sales job, what are some actionable improvements that employees can implement that can help them meaningfully? How do you build a deeper relationship with potential clients in a short period of time so that you can close deals more quickly? How do you better negotiate with your client on a price point? How do you behave in-person versus over a phone call? How many customer calls should you make in a day to ensure that you are progressing towards your target? 

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How you help plan and set these milestones for your team members, guide them and hold them accountable through appraisal conversations and consistent feedback, will make the difference in how your team members grow. 

1 Appraisal Conversations are a Two-Way Street

Tailor your feedback in a way that makes it easy for your team to understand it, appreciate it and apply it. Employees should also be given safe space to voice out their struggles, concerns, and ask questions so that both parties can effectively work together towards a solution.

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2 Weave Feedback into Your Daily Interactions 

Employees grow best in an environment that holds them accountable while providing them emotional support and psychological safety. The key to creating this environment is to build deep connections with your team members so that you can understand them and guide them where and when they need it the most.

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3 Frame Your Feedback Tactfully 

The way you position your feedback will affect how it lands with the receiver. Feedback must be crafted and framed according to the employee and the situation. Giving generic feedback may generate confusion and negativity instead.