At ease, please.
The employee should feel free to express himself/herself. Both supervisor
and employee should listen to each other in a friendly way, respecting feelings
and opinions. Even if disagreement surfaces, DON’T ARGUE.
Both parties should be prepared to:
Define responsibilities.
Discuss current responsibilities and any barriers to meeting them.
Plan work responsibilities for the future, incorporating ways to
overcome barriers and provide development.
Define
responsibilities.
Be sure both participants agree on what the employee is expected to do.
There can be situations where the employee is not really clear about the scope
or content of the job. The employee should state what he/she thinks the job is,
which may be different from the supervisor’s understanding. Different
understandings of the job will affect how each participant evaluates
performance.
Come to agreement
about responsibilities.
THIS IS IMPORTANT.
Research has shown that on the average a supervisor and employee have 75
percent agreement on what the job responsibilities are. In this case an employee
who thinks he/she is performing his/her duties at the 100 percent level may only
be meeting 75 percent of the supervisor’s expectations. Time spent reaching
agreement on what is expected can result in a huge payoff in desired results
without an increase in the effort exerted.
Employee goes
first.
The employee should begin a conference with his/her definition of the
responsibilities and self-evaluation. This allows the supervisor to react to
what is said and add other comments. If the employee is reluctant to begin
talking, the supervisor may have to suggest a subject for discussion. For
example, "One of the responsibilities that comes to my mind is . . . How
satisified are you with your performance of this?" The employee should have
adequate time to respond. The supervisor should not feel obligated to fill all
silences with talking.
Listen and
communicate.
By having the employee tell his/her own evaluation, the supervisor can
understand more about the employee's views about the job, performance, and ways
of improving performance. Understanding requires active listening on both sides
and an occasional summary by the supervisor of what the employee is saying. If
the summary does not agree with what the employee intended, both parties will
have a chance to clarify and work out the misunderstanding. If the employee is
upset, the supervisor should give him/her some time to express his/her feelings.
Afterwards the individual will probably be better able to discuss the issues
which caused the emotional reaction.
"Get through" on
important points.
The supervisor will generally want to discuss a number of issues with the
employee, but if misunderstanding or disagreement on important points arises
during the conference, keep in mind that it is more important to clarify a few
issues than to touch on many.
Consider future job
expectations.
What are reasonable expectations for the employee?
Should there be changes in priorities?
How can the employee improve or expand performance?
How can the supervisor help the employee meet objectives?
What if the
employee overvalues his/her contribution?
If the employee evaluates his/her performance more favorably than the
supervisor does, the supervisor should be sure to understand what is being said
by listening and restating the employee’s ideas. If this is an important aspect
of performance and there is still disagreement, the supervisor must make his/her
view clear, using specific examples of performance to illustrate. If the
employee does not recognize the examples as performance problems, the supervisor
must help him/her understand what the problem is. Change cannot occur until the
employee knows what or how to change.
What about the
employee who performs below expectations?
The supervisor needs to give extra attention to the employee who performs
below expectations. He/she must know exactly where performance is weak and how
to improve to become a satisfactory worker. Together the supervisor and employee
should work toward improvement with the supervisor offering help and support
where needed.
What is the
supervisor's responsibility?
Supervisors must be sensitive to how they can assist their employees in
improving performance. In some cases supervisors may have to admit that their
inadequate communication of expectations may have contributed to the situation
and they may need to improve their performance as supervisors before they can
help their employees to improve.
