What to Do If Your Performance Score Is Full of Criticism You’ve Never Heard Before
Ideally, your boss will communicate with you throughout the year so you know what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and where you need to improve. If it isn’t, and you’re overwhelmed by your performance review, here’s how to fix it.
In US News, Alison Greene explains that the key to criticism you’ve never heard before when sitting in a performance review is to make sure your manager admits that he never brought up the topic and that he should. She notes:
… that sometimes managers don’t give as much feedback as they should. And sometimes the timing of the assessment makes the manager step back and think about how things are going and makes him realize that there are problems in your area. If so, your manager has the right to raise these issues as part of your assessment, even if they have not been raised previously. Of course, a thoughtful manager will acknowledge this and say something like, “I understand that I have not raised this issue before, and should have.”
It’s also wise to ask you to receive feedback on a more consistent basis in the future so that you don’t hear about things for the first time in your assessment.
Of course, you can’t just stop the criticism and get them to remove it from your review, but you can get them to admit that they shouldn’t bring it up at this stage, and you can ask them for additional feedback in the future. Likewise, you should ask them for specific examples of where their criticism relates to the previous year so that you can clearly understand if this is really what they really think or if this is what they did for the review. Speaking of specific examples of criticism:
It’s very frustrating to hear things like “you need to be more initiative” or “you need to improve the quality of your presentations” without getting any specific details to help you understand what your boss is asking you to change. If this happens, do not hesitate to ask for further clarification; In fact, it is important to do this because otherwise you are unlikely to be able to make the changes requested by your manager. You can put it this way: “I really appreciate this feedback. So that I can understand the problem and what you would like me to do differently, could you please give me an example or two of where I missed the mark and what it would look like if I was? “
Sure, this phrase is classic language “written for a career blog and no one will say it in real life,” but adapt it to your circumstances. For me, if someone just said, “Have you had a few times when I did this and needed to do it differently?” would be enough to the point. For more tips on how to survive this year-end performance review, visit the link below.