Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ten Tips to Maximize Your Performance Appraisal Documentation Skills (part 5)

By Paul Falcone

Rule 8: Don’t formally document or otherwise discuss the merit (salary) increase during the performance review process.

If you document, ‘‘I believe Janet should receive a 5 percent merit increase this year based on her performance’’ or raise this issue verbally during the performance appraisal meeting, expect Janet to focus on salary from that point forward.

Whether she challenges your overall merit increase recommendation or simply spends the next few minutes of the meeting trying to determine how much that 5 percent uplift will impact her biweekly paycheck, the focus will shift away from performance. Since this is a performance review as opposed to a salary review meeting, keep merit increase discussions out of the meeting. They will only weaken your message and lessen your ability to bring about change in the individual’s performance levels over the upcoming review period.

Rule 9: You have the right to add disciplinary language to an annual performance review, turning it, in effect, into a written warning.

When managers confirm ongoing substandard performance issues in an annual appraisal, they often mistakenly believe that they must then wait an additional 30 or 60 days before initiating a formal written warning. In essence, the two steps may be combined to hasten the progressive discipline process.

Occasionally, it may be appropriate to add disciplinary language to the performance review itself, thereby turning the substandard performance appraisal into a formal written warning. Your narrative might look like this:

In addition to documenting that your overall performance for this review period does not meet company expectations, this annual appraisal will also serve as a formal written warning. Failure to demonstrate immediate and sustained improvement may result in further disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.

You’ll thereby have established a written record of communicating that the individual’s employment is in serious jeopardy of being lost.

Of course, this suggestion could seem a bit extreme, depending on your company’s policies and past practices, or a collective bargaining agreement may preclude such aggressive actions. Still, depending on the nature of the infraction as well as the employee’s tenure with the company and status as a protected worker, it could certainly be worth pursuing. When in doubt, speak with your HR department or qualified outside counsel, especially if this will be the first time your company will have engaged in this practice of combining annual reviews with formal written warnings.

Rule 10 : .......

Source : 2600 phrases for effective performance reviews. Paul Falcone. 2005

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