Giving Feedback: Use these sample phrases to craft meaningful performance evaluations, drive change and motivate your workforce.

Giving Feedback is one of the most powerful tools to develop employees and improve performance through honest feedback of the work done best and areas that need improvement.

Giving Feedback: Exceeds Expectations Phrases

  • Observes and addresses specific employees' behaviors instead of making broad judgments
  • Provides feedback as soon as possible after a behavior has been observed in order to make it more pertinent and relevant
  • Makes sure that the employee has heard and understood the message one has sent and that he/she is ready to work on weak areas
  • Thinks about what needs to be addressed, why it should be addressed, and what concrete steps can be taken to move forward
  • Looks for useful information that the employees need and that which will help them become more successful in their work
  • Avoids focusing on feedback as either negative or positive in order to not interfere with one's ability to put important points across
  • Approaches employees from the standpoint that one recognizes their desires to perform effectively in their work
  • Schedules a specific time to give feedback and allows the other person time to prepare to receive it
  • Listens to how the person interpreted the situation and their suggestions and asks how one can help to prevent the situation from recurring
  • Checks own temper and waits until one has cooled down in order to deliver more measurable feedback

Giving Feedback: Meets Expectations Phrases

  • Spells out exactly how an employee's actions negatively impact the organization instead of addressing own frustrations
  • Chooses own words carefully and restrains from making any demoralizing statements that call the employees intelligence into question
  • Delivers negative feedback in a tactful and assertive manner yet in a straightforward way
  • Keeps an open mind and gives the other person an opportunity to explain their side of the story
  • Does what one can to help the employee improve and correct the issue at hand swiftly and quickly
  • Constantly offers praise for jobs well done in order to reinforce positive behavior and boost morale of the employees
  • Makes sure that the employee one is giving feedback is comfortable with it and is able to apply it practically to become more productive at work
  • Gives objective and forward moving feedback that motivates and inspires the other person to perform better
  • Makes sure that the feedback does not embarrass the other person or make them feel bad about it
  • Offers the employee with training and provides more frequent direction in order to help them improve on weak areas

Giving Feedback: Needs Improvement Phrases

  • Views the "feedback meeting" as an opportunity to vent, rather than a time to discuss a specific issue and help the person improve in the future
  • Puts employees on the defensive by immediately blaming and shaming them thus they are not open to criticism
  • Gives feedback on why one does not like something without offering suggestions on what one would have wanted to see
  • Withholds negative feedback to underperforming employees thus depriving them the information they need to improve
  • Gives feedback that goes on for too long without giving the other person time to process the information he/she has received
  • Waits for something to snowball into a bigger deal instead of addressing it as soon as it happens
  • Gives feedback that contains an implied threat and that makes a person feel as if their job is in jeopardy
  • Uses inappropriate humor which makes the other person uncomfortable and hurts his/her feelings
  • Often dumps a slew of complaints on one employee all at once instead of focusing on correcting one thing at a time
  • Always tells employees what they are doing wrong which makes them assume that they are not a good fit for the job

Giving Feedback: Self Evaluation Questions

  • Describe a time when you have helped an employee accept change and make adjustments necessary to move forward. How did you go about it?
  • How have you handled an employee whose work is not up to the company's expectations?
  • Describe the most difficult performance review you have handled. What made it difficult and how did you go about it?
  • How often do you discuss a person's performance with him/her? Give a specific example
  • Describe a time when you have had to deal with an employee who was not happy about the feedback you had given. How did you handle the situation?
  • How do you deliver negative feedback without hurting the feelings of other employees?
  • When do you give positive feedback to your employees or subordinates? Give an example of the last time you did
  • What techniques have you used to track an employee's performance in order to give the best feedback?
  • How do you recognize and motivate employees who have constantly demonstrated excellent performance at work?
  • What are some of the things you have done to develop the skills of other employees and make them more productive?

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