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Q: Our employees have said that our current employee review process does not provide enough direction on ways to improve. What are some effective ways to uncover and communicate specific improvement areas?

Mark Homer, CEO GNGF

A: The first thing to do is to make sure you have a sense of what stellar performance looks like.

What are the key skills and/or tasks that are required for a position? When someone is doing the job well, what does that look like? Without this baseline, it's hard to know what gaps exist (either positive — if they could do more — or negative — if they aren't meeting expectations).

You can establish a baseline using internal sources like job descriptions and recruiting materials or external sources like the Occupation Information Network (O*Net) and trade associations.

Once established, you need to gather good, specific data about what employees are doing.

I have found that the best way to get this is to keep a journal — electronic or otherwise — where once a week, you record specific examples of what is going well and not so well for each employee. You can also ask them to let you know what they think on a weekly or biweekly basis.

A great result of this is that you can have an ongoing dialogue with them, which gets results faster and engages employees better.

Additionally, think of feedback as a process. Once you identify a gap — positive or negative — you must work with the employee to figure out what is causing it.

Once you identify the reason for the gap together, then problem solve together. What goals, projects or situations would allow the employee to work on that gap and what support, resources and/or training will they need to be successful? Write it down and follow up.

Finally, get the employees to see this as part of their responsibility. They can ask for feedback. They can create goals. And they can take those goals to others and ask for help in making them happen.

Employees wanting more information on ways to improve is a good problem to have.

Elizabeth Welsh is an associate professor of management specializing in human resources at the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas.