Take Good Notes

It’s very important to provide feedback to your employees. Some companies — especially large ones — will have a formal employee evaluation system in place, whereas others — especially young start-ups — prefer a more low-key approach more concerned with one-to-one discussions than with documenting employee performance.

But it’s important to document things in between feedback sessions, whether formally or otherwise, because it’s hard to keep track of everything your employees do.

Throughout my career I have tended toward the informal route. I keep a notebook where I keep track of things my employees do, good or bad. Even the really good things they do might not stand out in my mind 6 months later without some sort of memory jogger. Your employees often will be involved in multiple projects or do work for multiple clients, and it is hard to keep all that straight without some sort of record.

Sometimes these notes are not even about specific events, merely observations, such as somebody’s work improving, or a sense that someone else is not really pulling his weight. I do not just review this notebook at feedback time, but instead look at it every now and then to see if there are any trends I should notice or any observations that could use some follow up.

There are some things that will help you with this:

Objectives You should have objectives for each employee. These should involve such things as their job performance, things they and you want them to improve upon, milestones toward future goals, and other issues related to your organization’s mission and their own development. Keep a list of those with the notebook so you can refer to it and see when they are making progress or sliding backwards.

Good and bad Keep track of their successes as well as their failures. You want to be able to show them where they made progress while also identifying areas for improvement.

Suggestions If, as an employee has a problem, you think “wow, I wish he had done THIS,” then write down what THIS is while you are thinking about it. You will not remember it later. Even if the two of you discuss it at the time, keep track of what you discussed so you can refer back to it later and see what they have learned from the problem.

Review Take a look at your notes every now and then to see what trends are popping up. If you have an employee who is continually having problems, maybe there is another area where they can work. Perhaps your web artist should be working in print media instead, for example, and it is better to have a course correction earlier rather than later. At a minimum, before you have a feedback session with your employee, make sure to look this over first and think about what you are going to say. That is why you put the work into it, right? Even if someone sticks their head into your office and says. “Gotta minute? How am I doing?,” it is better to take the time and get ready for it rather than just talking off the top of your head. Feedback is too important to be wasting an opportunity.

I use something like this when I teach, too. Typically I will have a “class participation” grade, and it is tough at the end of the semester to remember who was active early on and who sat back and let everyone else do the thinking. Few of us have good enough memories to remember all that people do over time. A few good notes will make our feedback so much more valuable.