Four Tips for Handling Your Employee Review

Your superior sends an email. “Let’s go over your employee review.” You break out in a cold sweat and look for the nearest exit. Perhaps it’s the only time you wish you had a dentist appointment!

We all go through it. Feedback received during an employee review can be a bit nerve wracking. You think you’re doing a good job but, you’re about to find out for sure. In my world of executive development, this glass is half full, not half empty.

Knowing how you are seen by your supervisors and peers is far better than not knowing. And while it could cause some stress hearing honest feedback, if you keep these four points in mind, you’ll garner the most benefits.

How to Handle Your Employee Review

Remain Open/Don’t Judge
Everyone, including your boss, is looking at how you accept the feedback. You’ve got to want to learn from a review and understand how you’re perceived by your constituents. This is not a time to defend yourself; it is a time to take it all in and find aspects of yourself you can improve.

Be Grateful
Feedback is a gift from others. When people give feedback, they are doing so knowing that “their time will come,” so you can trust that the input they are giving is meant to help you. Take it that way and be grateful.

Practice Forbearance
Forbearance is patient restraint, the ability to keep yourself in check when provoked. Notice your initial reaction to your feedback, read and re-read your feedback again. Then notice how you’re feeling about it with a clear head. This calming process will help you process the feedback rationally and with the intent to improve your skills.

Enjoy The Journey, Not The Destination
Your development never ends. The employee review is just one way to push you forward. It’s a great exploration into who you are now and who you’ll develop into along your professional path. Allow it to happen, don’t get in the way of it.

Let me know how your next review goes and, more importantly, how you handled it.