Performance Reviews

Face it: One of these days, a disgruntled former employee will sue your organization. You can’t predict which one—or for what reason. That’s one of the most important reasons to keep detailed and meticu­­lous records on employee performance.

Q. One of our employees secretly used his iPhone to make an audio recording of his review meeting. Is that legal?

Some employees are overly sensitive. They may perceive punishment or discrimination in something the boss considers merely constructive criticism. Tell supervisors: Don’t shrink from offering criticism, even in the case of a high performer who otherwise has earned a good evaluation.

Employees who work under genu­­inely intolerable conditions can quit their jobs and still collect un­­em­­ployment compensation. But those situations are rare—and don’t provide cover for overly sensitive workers. Supervisors routinely criticize employees and offer suggestions for improvement. That’s normal and doesn’t constitute harassment.

It’s important to know the kind of language managers should—and should not—use in documentation. Test your knowl­edge by answering “True” or “False” to the following statements:

Q. One of our employees secretly did an audio recording of his performance review meeting with his iPhone. Is that legal?

At work, numbers speak volumes. If you can’t show, quantitatively, that something is improving, then how can you really know it’s improving? It’s not surprising, then, that more admins are being asked to set SMART goals—specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals—to be evaluated against.

Watch out if a supervisor starts keeping extra-close tabs on an employee’s work in the wake of declining productivity or a poor review. You must make sure all employees in a similar situation get the same close attention.

When deciding who should get the ax during cost-cutting reductions in force, use as many objective factors as possible. For example, use performance measures that include specific achieve­­­ments and rankings based on those achievements.

A comprehensive document management system can help your business boost productivity, improve the bottom line and stay out of legal trouble. Here are three ways to organize files for easy retrieval, establish a record retention schedule and tame your wild email inbox.