HR Grapevine - 5 top performance phrases to ace an employee review

An extract from another helpful article from the team at HR Grapevine regarding key and helpful ideas for performance reviews.       

Providing clear and concise feedback in a performance review

Providing clear and concise feedback in a performance review or a 1-2-1 meeting isn’t always easy to deliver, as managers can often go off on a tangent and discuss other matters that may be irrelevant to the employee’s progress or achievement. This can lead to many employees feeling underwhelmed and confused about what they need to do next to ensure they are meeting targets and expectations in future. To ensure you are giving the most positive feedback and helpful advice, HR Grapevine has created a list of top phrases you should be using during a performance review, to help you get the very best out of your employees.

Having a structure

Before you start the performance review, it’s a good idea to prepare a structure of how you would like the meeting to go. Similarly, Culture Amp believes feedback should be given in the following format: Stop/start/keep doing. This will help you point out what an employee is and isn’t excelling at, with a clear indication of what to do next.

Areas of improvement

Alternatively, flip the phrase to prompt action

According to Culture Amp, if you are looking to give feedback on areas of improvement, provide them with how their actions have resulted in a consequence. This gives you the opportunity to explain a negative outcome, which the employee may not be aware of.

If you are not comfortable with telling an employee to stop doing something, Culture Amp advises HR to flip a phrase by saying that you would like to see them start doing something, purely because it will help them meet a certain objective or goal.

Positive feedback

Providing positive feedback is the best kind, and something all managers want to give their staff. Therefore, it’s important for you to acknowledge good behaviour and why you would like to see it continue. Telling the employee what they excel at and that you would love to see more of it will ensure they leave with clear objectives.

Help employees feel appreciated

Another phrase to deliver positive feedback is by telling the employee to keep doing what they’re doing and provide a situation where their actions have helped other colleagues. This allows managers to provide the insights of other members of the team, which will help to make them feel appreciated within the company.

Holly Gregory Associates are providers of HR Consulting and Change Management Services. As HR Practitioners we have both the knowledge and experience of the HR landscape (current and future HR strategy) but also are Change Agents. You will be getting two in one: HR Consultancy but also Change Management. Our HR Company is known for having trusted advisers, is a safe pair of hands, we get down in the dirty quickly. We have cross sector knowledge and UK and EMEA experience. We will work with you to advice and guide with our HR Services and implement HR change professionally with the full support of your people, and key stakeholders.