All employees require feedback for their performance. They want to know whether they are doing well and meeting the expectations of their manager. It is a challenging task when you need to discuss performance improvement of your employees.

Companies conduct performance reviews to provide feedback and encourage development of employees. Despite how your performance practices work, when you need to have a difficult conversation with your employees, here are some performance evaluation phrases and tactics that will help you to smoothen the process.

Your performance has exceeded expectations

This is the easiest form of communication. It’s easy to instill praise and commend your employees for an outstanding effort. It’s always a good idea to cite specific situations and instances where the employee exceeded expectations. With examples, the employee will know where he excelled and will continue to make a conscious effort to maintain his performance.

  • You have prepared an outstanding report that has gone down well with our board. The report is being treated as the benchmark of the industry. Well done!
  • You have exceeded your target this year and the organization would like to applaud you on your exceptional work. We value your contribution and would like to see star performers like you excel further

Your performance has met expectations

This is still a relatively easy form of communication, since your employee has done his job well. Cite examples and show the employee how he has met expectations, so that he works towards meeting and is motivated to exceeding expectations, as well.

  • You have been given a target of 100 sales, which you have met very easily. Having seen the ease at which you have met your target, I believe you have the capability to far exceed your current performance.
  • I find that you have always met your deadlines with ease and accuracy. I see that you could stand to benefit from taking on greater responsibility to help you grow and improve further.

Your performance needs improvement

This area can get a little tricky, as you need to watch your comments and ensure that you don’t antagonize your employee in the process. You should encourage your employees to improve their performances to become outstanding work contributors. Highlight specific areas that you need the employee to focus on, but remember to also commend them on the positive aspects of their job.

  • I appreciate that you make an effort to get to work on time every day, but I still find you working beyond office hours. While I applaud your commitment, I believe that you could find a way to improve your time management skills, so that you can meet your deadlines within reasonable hours.
  • You said that you would like to improve your pay scale every year. You are definitely thinking in the right direction. There are areas though that you should work on, if you were to achieve your goal.

Your performance hasn’t met expectations

This is perhaps the toughest conversation that you’re going to have. You need to have an honest discussion with your employee about their inability to meet expectations consistently during the review period. The performance review comments you use here are very important. You need to discuss a plan of action that will help the employee to improve their performance and meet job expectations.

  • I believe that you could benefit immensely from this specific training seminar, which you should attend to build your skills further.
  • I see that you are lagging behind the team. Let’s work together to create an actionable goal plan, which we could start reviewing on a weekly basis.

In Conclusion

When you make the effort to communicate your thoughts clearly and productively, you can take precautions to circumvent a defensive response. If your employee finds it difficult to understand and accept, tell him that you are open to communication to help him improve his performance. When an employee notices your objectivity and impartiality, he is more likely to accept your feedback and work on improving his performance in the workplace.

When managing performance evaluations at the workplace, you must always be prepared to objectively assess the performance of your employees and deliver impartial evaluation that has a direct impact on improving the performance of your employees.