Page 174 - Retaining Top Employees

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162 Retaining Top Employees

problems to persist and the harder it becomes to
remember specifics. Delays also undermine the credibili-
ty of the goal-setting process for the future.
Feedback
The final step of the performance management process is giv-
ing the employee feedback on the appraisal. This is important
for all employees, for their personal and career development,
but especially for top performers—and essential for retaining
them.
Here’s how to make the most of performance management
feedback:
• Make it specific. Don’t just sum up the period under
review. Effective feedback is a detailed, step-by-step
review of each key goal. Use an overview only to start
and finish the feedback session.
• Make it positive. High performers respond well to posi-
tive reinforcement, less well to negative criticism. It’s
important to give feedback on failures as well as suc-
cesses, but do it constructively to help them improve
their performance or they will eventually leave.
• Make it challenging. Don’t just tell your employees what
happened and how you feel about it; challenge them
with a specific outcome that you would like to see. If
you’re discussing a success or a strength, reinforce the

Peek Inside
Top performers need communication and feedback. Many
top employees appear self-contained,perhaps difficult to
approach. Don’t be fooled by the cover! Peek inside and you’ll see a
person who needs even more communication and feedback than
other employees.
Feedback is essential to the top performers’ internal process for
benchmarking against their own exacting standards and goals—their sin-
gle most important motivator.When dealing with top performers,think
of feedback not as something that will change their performance direct-
ly,but as something they’ll use themselves to change their performance.