1. Providing Feedback to Employees
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Human Resources
Providing Feedback to Employees
Bernard L. Erven
Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics
Ohio State University
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

2. Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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“How Am I doing?”
Nearly all employees want an answer to this question.
Many employers and supervisors find it difficult to provide the answer.
The purpose of this opening slide is to get participants’ attention.
There is often a huge gap between what employees want to know and what they do know.
Ironically, it is the best performing employees who most want to be told how they are doing.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

3. Who in your business now knows how they are doing?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Who in your business now knows how they are doing?
No one.
Some do, some don’t..
They can all figure it out.
The ones who most need to improve.
No one - I don’t want them asking for more money.
Everyone. I tell others and the word gets back to them.
They all know they are doing well because I tell them when they aren’t.
None of these is the preferred response to the question.
Providing feedback to employees is a proactive management responsibility that can not be handled via the grapevine.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

4. “How am I doing?” is answered through performance reviews.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Human Resources
“How am I doing?” is answered through performance reviews.
Communication is the foundation of performance reviews.
May be formal or informal.
A manager responsibility.
This slide helps make the transition from attention on a question to a human management resource activity called performance review.
The fact that performance reviews may be formal or informal suggests that the manager has choice and ultimate control over the process. The theme of choice and ultimate control guides all that is to follow in this paper.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

5. Possible reasons to not provide feedback.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
Human Resources
Possible reasons to not provide feedback.
Good employees know they are good; poor employees don’t care how they are doing.
Employee reviews interfere with personal relations.
They make people unhappy and jealous of each other.
Some things are better not said.
Feedback takes too much time.
Supervisors don’t want to do it.
The list is designed to generate discussion and sharing of experiences. Are any of the participants using any of these reasons to justify not providing feedback?
Note that feedback is used in the title rather than the more formal and imposing “performance reviews.” The distinction is subtle and unimportant at this stage of the discussion.
Each of these objections to providing feedback contains a bit of truth. None, however, makes a persuasive case for ignoring an important management tool.
No matter the reaction to the list, it is important to acknowledge the difficulty of the task for people not accustomed to providing feedback.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

6. Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Outline
Eight questions guide planning for successful feedback.
Target is farm managers who do not have feedback procedures in place.
Emphasis is on “what is right with the best employees rather than what is wrong with the poorest employees.”
Conclude discussion of the outline by again reminding the participants that most employees in small businesses receive less feedback than they want and feel powerless to get more.
Managers have the feedback responsibility. Attitude is important. Before considering the specifics that follow, managers will benefit from making a strong commitment to actually doing reviews not just talking or thinking about doing them. The commitment should include making the reviews timely in the face of great time pressure to postpone, to being honest, and to thinking about helping employees.
The commitment should reinforce the paradigm of “what is right with the best people rather than what is wrong with the poorest people.”
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

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Eight questions can guide getting started with performance evaluations.
What are my objectives for performance reviews?
Who will be reviewed?
What will be the mix of individual and group reviews?
Will the reviews be formal or informal?
What will be the mix of objective and subjective measures of performance?
How often will the reviews be done?
Who will conduct the reviews?
What review processes will be used?
Do not dwell on these questions at this point. The questions simply provide a roadmap for what is to follow.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

8. 1. What are possible objectives:
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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1. What are possible objectives:
Help employees improve their performance.
Help employees with their career planning.
Take advantage of employee insights for improving the business.
Identify training and retraining needs.
Encourage and motivate employees.
Promote teamwork and employee cohesiveness.
Provide information for compensation decisions.
Increase satisfaction with human resource accomplishments.
Identify needed changes in human resource management practices.
Provide information for the redesign of jobs.
Eliminate legally indefensible personnel actions.
The list of possible objectives is to suggest that managers have choices to make.
Objectives for the performance reviews determine how they are conducted.
Most employers are likely to find all of these objectives attractive.
Question 11 calls attention to the importance of a paper trail of what has been done and why. Such a paper trail is essential for employers to defend themselves against legal action by employees including former employees.
Such a list can be a starting point for discussion in the management team and with key employees. Their support will be critical to success with employee reviews. It is best to face misunderstanding, skepticism, fear and outright rejection of performance reviews early in the planning process. Consensus building on objectives can be used to promote honest discussion.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

9. Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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2. Who will be reviewed?
All employees should be reviewed.
The top manager can set an example by starting reviews with the people who report directly to him or her.
Do not hesitate to work toward reviews for all employees. Few people complain about having too much information about their performance. Few people complain about receiving too many sincere compliments and too much thanks.
Set an example at the top. It helps for the person being reviewed to know that the person doing the review has already had his or her own review.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

10. Gaining understanding of who will be reviewed.
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Gaining understanding of who will be reviewed.
Carefully build the case for reviews among members of the management team and with employees.
When starting with reviews for everyone is impractical, first focus attention on new employees.
Employees having learned the value of feedback during their first year will expect it to continue.
Long-term dedicated employees who have never had reviews must be handled with care.
The job interviews and orientation of new employees provide the opportunity to make the case for performance reviews. Explain that feedback can help new employees immensely in realizing the potential they demonstrated when hired.
New employees will appreciate feedback at the end of the first day, end of the first week, at regular intervals during the probationary period and several times during the first year. They deserve more attention than other employees. Employee reviews thus become less of a chore and more of an opportunity for new employees.
An unexpected review out of the blue is likely to cause fear and lost of trust. Even the best and most experienced employees surprised by announcement of a forthcoming performance evaluation will ponder and worry over questions such as: “Why now?” “Why me?” “What have I done wrong?” “What are you really trying to tell me?” Starting only with new employees is one way of handling the potential problem of suspicious experienced employees. Simply wait for experienced employees to hint at their desire to also benefit from reviews.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

11. 3. Individual or group reviews?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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3. Individual or group reviews?
Employee reviews typically are person-by-person.
Emphasizing individual reviews can detract from teamwork and cooperation among employees.
Contributions to teamwork can be made part of each employee’s review.
When teamwork is the backbone of a business, reviews should first be done at the team level. A second step can be review of individuals with emphasis on contribution to team success, increased ability to contribute to team goals and progress in fitting into the team.
No matter what is done in individual reviews, teamwork increases peer pressure to contribute to the team.
In true teamwork environments, satisfying teammates becomes more important than satisfying a supervisor.
Employees easily see the dilemma created by promoting teamwork while reviewing and rewarding individual effort.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

12. 4. Formal or informal reviews?
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4. Formal or informal reviews?
Formal reviews occur on a regular schedule, e.g., twice per year.
Informal reviews occur on an as needed basis.
A combination of formal and informal reviews works best.
Not all performance review objectives can be accomplished by depending exclusively on either formal or informal reviews.
Formal reviews usually include filling out a form or providing some other type of written report to employees. Employees usually have a chance to comment or respond to the evaluator’s assessment. Formal reviews often include discussion of needed changes in performance. Helping the employee think through career interests and opportunities can be incorporated into supervisor/employee discussions.
With formal reviews, an employee’s file contains a paper trail of training, progress, retraining, development and in some cases disciplinary action.
Informal reviews reflect a commitment to continuous and open communication with employees. The supervisor and employee confront problems as they occur. Praise is given as it is earned. Employees ask questions as they arise. Both supervisors and employees work to create an open environment that emphasizes mutual support.
Little or no paper trail is generated.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

13. 5. Mix of objective and subjective measures of performance?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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5. Mix of objective and subjective measures of performance?
Objective approach  Performance evaluated against specific standards, e.g., times tardy for work per year.
Subjective approach  Performance evaluation based on supervisor’s judgment, intuition, and feelings, e.g., employee’s cooperativeness.
Compared to subjective judgments, objective standards can more easily be explained, measured and adjusted as the job changes.
Important to combine objective and subjective measures.
Job requirements dictate the objective standards to be used in performance evaluation. The simple guideline is, “If it isn’t important to the job, why should it be measured?” The range of objective standards used in performance evaluations is limited only by the range of important tasks included in job descriptions, e.g., rate of weight gain, net return per cwt. of production, turnover of employees supervised, number of new customers per month, days worked without injury, returned orders, customers trying a new product and yields. All jobs can have some objective measures of performance
Much less formal measures dictate subjective criteria, e.g., attitude, initiative, aggressiveness, flexibility, friendliness and openness. When supervisors and employees know each other well and interact often, feelings toward each other can easily become subjective.
Employees not receiving regular formal reviews of their performance are still being judged subjectively by their supervisors and coworkers. The employees are simply missing the benefit of concrete measures of how they are doing, which parts of their work are best and which parts most need improvement.
Realistically, subjective measures cannot be avoided.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

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6. How often to review?
Conduct formal evaluations at least once each year.
Do all reviews during a single month or spread out by scheduling on anniversary of employment.
Avoid scheduling formal reviews more than two times per year.
Stick to announced schedule.
When starting a formal review process, employers often promise reviews more often than is feasible, e.g., every three months. Formal evaluations more often than twice per year is infeasible in most organizations.
Sticking to the announced schedule is much more important than how often the reviews are done. Some employees, e.g., the best performers, eagerly look forward to their reviews. Postponing the reviews or worse, simply letting the date pass without scheduling the reviews, may be disheartening to the employees most valued in the business.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

15. 7. Who conducts the reviews?
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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7. Who conducts the reviews?
Employees’ immediate supervisors are most often in the best position to do performance reviews.
Supervisors can seek supplementary information from coworkers, other supervisors, customers and in some cases people supervised by the person being reviewed.
Employees will not take seriously evaluations from people who are not well acquainted with what actually happens day-to-day in the work place.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

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8. Process to be used?
Master a simple approach first.
Build on the supervisor’s and employee’s clear understanding of tasks, duties and responsibilities.
Insist on two-way communication.
Seek agreement on what has been accomplished since the last review, needed improvements, and longer run career goals and plans.
Starting with a simple process allows supervisors and employees to become comfortable with giving and receiving performance reviews. Detail, complexity and sophistication can be added later. Complex and time consuming long forms and detailed data should be added when the need has been clearly shown and the chances of success are high.
Designing a review process starts with the job not the employee. Ideally, each job has tasks, duties and responsibilities understood by the supervisor and employee through a job description. The job description provides standards against which performance can be measured. The standards dictate the data that need to be collected, what the supervisor needs to be documenting between performance reviews, and judgments that need to be made.
Whatever the process, the supervisor and employee need to have two-way communication that leads to understanding and agreement. The agreement covers what has been accomplished since the last review, the corrective action if any that is needed and the employee’s longer run aspirations and plans.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

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Simplest approach
Supervisor proceeds along the following general lines:
Review expected outcomes.
Observe performance, collect performance data and make judgments to be able to say to the employee, “I see your three most important strengths (contributions, accomplishments) as “
Ask the employee, “What do you see as your most important strengths (contributions, accomplishments)?”
Step #1 is accomplished by reviewing the job description and performance standards, i.e., expected outcomes.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

18. Simplest approach - continued
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Simplest approach - continued
Say to the employee, “I see this (or these two things) as most important for you to improve during the next six months.”
Ask the employee, “What would you like to improve?”
Discuss what is needed for the employee to meet performance standards.
Summarize what has been agreed to.
Conclude with a positive note about the future.
In step #6, discuss training, retraining, equipment, information and whatever else may be necessary for the employee to meet performance standards.
In step #7, introduce the summary with a statement like, “I want to summarize what we have agreed to.”
The concluding positive note should assure the employee that there will be opportunity for follow up including the next scheduled performance review.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

19. Advantages of the simple approach for getting started:
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Advantages of the simple approach for getting started:
No forms are required.
It builds on existing positive relations with employees.
Emphasis is on helping the employee improve.
Compliments exceed criticisms.
Can be tailored to individual employees, i.e., the discussions with new employees and experienced employees can differ as needed.
A reasonable target is for compliments to exceed criticisms by at least a three-to-one margin.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

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Graphic rating scale
A widely used alternative to the simple method.
Usually built around a 1-3 page form.
Employee is evaluated on each key performance standard that is in the job description.
Form is designed to identify specific strengths, areas for improvement and an overall assessment.
The form is easy to understand because it reflects the key performance standards that come from a job description. When employees do not have a written job description, the supervisor and employee should agree on key performance standards before the evaluation is conducted.
A form needs to be tailored to each job because tasks and key performance standards vary from job to job. Some measures can be objective such as quantity of work, reliability, and attendance. Other measures can be subjective requiring judgment by the supervisor, e.g., adaptability and cooperation.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

21. Graphic rating scale - continued
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Graphic rating scale - continued
Supervisors provide supportive details or comments on each task or performance area.
Specific examples of excellence or mediocrity (with date and setting) add helpful detail.
Two-way communication should occur between supervisor and employee.
The form instructs the evaluator to rate the employee on each performance areas and provide supportive details or comments.
The specific examples of excellence or mediocrity are called critical incidents. These critical incidents add insight about what the supervisor expects. The critical incidents can lead to training needs or adjustments in how the employee is doing the job.
The form incorporating the graphic rating scales helps most in employee performance reviews when incorporated into open and honest two-way communication between the supervisor and employee.
A separate section of the form can provide the employee an opportunity to make clear whatever concerns, commitments and plans that came out of the review. The employee’s acceptance of the evaluation can be invaluable in legally defending compensation, discipline and discharge decisions.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

22. Tips for starting employee reviews
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Tips for starting employee reviews
Train all supervisors to do employee reviews before they start doing them.
Strive for a positive attitude toward employee reviews among all supervisors.
Tell employees when their reviews will be done; don’t surprise them.
Stick to the announced schedule.
Explain the review procedures to all employees
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

23. Tips for Starting Employee Reviews
Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Tips for Starting Employee Reviews
Ask employees to think about their own performance, their questions and their career aspirations before discussion with their supervisors.
Discuss performance in private.
View employee reviews as an opportunity for open and honest communication.
Make the review communication two-way.
Make the annual or semi-annual formal evaluation a supplement to continuous informal communication.
Be prepared to deal with strong emotional responses from employees.
Spend some time on career implications.
End the review on a positive note.
Ask employees how the review process can be improved.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

24. Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Concluding notes
Employees and employers like performance reviews when they are win-win for both parties.
Employees will respond positively to well planned and conducted reviews.
The responsibility, however, rests firmly with the supervisor.
No matter how frustrating and slow early progress may be, the results will be well worth the effort.
End the discussion on an encouraging note. Return to the emphasis on employees wanting to know how they are doing.
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002

25. Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
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Strategic Business Planning for Commercial Producers
© Purdue University, Center for Food and Agricultural Business, 2002