Training and seminars for employee appraisals:  conducting employee appraisals is much more than just a tedious compulsory exercise. Regular and professional discussions between managers and employees form the basis for trusting cooperation, open communication and the continuous development of employees and the entire team.

These confidential discussions provide you with valuable insights into the strengths, goals and challenges of your employees. They enable you to recognize conflicts and problems at an early stage and find solutions together. 

However, effective appraisal interviews require preparation, tact and communication skills on the part of the manager. Through professional training on how to conduct employee appraisals, you will learn tried-and-tested methodologies and techniques to:

  • create an atmosphere of trust in discussions
  • communicate goals and expectations clearly
  • respond in a sensitive manner to criticism and concerns
  • give constructive feedback
  • promote motivation and potential in the best possible way

What does employee management mean – generally speaking?

Generally speaking and radically abbreviated, the goals of employee management can be stated as follows:

  • a desirable overall performance by the team you lead
  • Employees who surpass themselves under your influence and who feel comfortable in doing so.

The most important and probably the only means of getting these intentions and goals into the hearts and minds of employees is the employee appraisal. Open, clear, constructive and appreciative discussions are the decisive medium and forum for obtaining and securing the commitment of employees. Because without these commitments, leadership ultimately comes to nothing.

Your benefits

You are moving on a training field on which you should achieve the following goals:

  • You will gain (further) confidence in conducting appraisals, even if the conversation becomes difficult;
  • You train to be clear in the message to be delivered;
  • You promote and/or bring about an improvement in your personnel organization;
  • You gain further clarity regarding the improvement of personnel development;
  • You improve and intensify your overall employee management;
  • This improves the productivity of your team;
  • You create an atmosphere in which people feel comfortable and (therefore) achieve team goals at the same time.
  • You will obtain practical tools with which you and your employees can prepare and conduct the various discussions.

Training for employee appraisals: what you will learn

  • Conduct a systematic, structured feedback discussion on the strengths and potential of your employees
  • Conducting an appraisal interview for necessary behavioral improvements
  • Giving a (motivational) speech to your team

Seminar on employee appraisals: our approach

3 typical or important scenarios are trained:

  1. General feedback on the employee’s strengths and potential
  2. Conversation to improve employee behavior
  3. (Motivational) address to the team
  • In round 1, two participants are paired up as discussion partners – the other participants and the seminar leader act as feedback providers.
  • Round 2 has the same setting, but a different content: the “employee” has shown unacceptable behavior – an experience drawn from the professional life of the interviewer – and this behavior is to be stopped.
  • And finally, round 3 is about motivating your own team (= the other seminar participants) to take a particular action (a project, an important entrepreneurial action or similar).
  • All of this with video and participant or seminar leader feedback.

Our training approach

  • Anyone who might object that this is “just” an artificial role-playing scenario, which then also leads to video-related unnatural behaviour, is very much mistaken:
  • amazingly, it is always (!) and demonstrably (!) the case that the respective participants in the “conversation” find themselves almost immediately in a situation that they perceive and experience as genuine.
  • What’s more, they quickly lose their usual camera shyness and, on the contrary, are extremely grateful for this opportunity to view their own external image in the recording.
  • The use of video feedback is therefore far from obsolete; on the contrary, it has experienced a renaissance. Apart from that, video recording is no longer perceived as an “intrusion”, especially amongst the younger participants, who are familiar with visual digital images of all kinds due to their affinity with social media.

initio training on conducting employee appraisals – why you should take part

  • Keep reminding yourself that the employee appraisal is your main management tool – bar none. Therefore, it not only makes sense, but is essential to really master this instrument!
  • In a safe atmosphere (there are no mistakes!) and in the smallest possible group of participants, you have the opportunity to really train. This is not the usual theory-heavy seminar with a short role play. But instead:
    • A brief (!) introduction to the topic – because experience has shown that the theoretical part is well known to the participants from previous seminars – and then:
    • Training! In other words: each participant trains a “real” employee interview from their own working environment and is provided with…
    • … video-based participant and trainer feedback: constructive, clear, appreciative.

Your trainer

The trainer is Dr. Jürgen Wonde – a trainer and coach with more than 25 years experience on all aspects of leadership and collaboration.

Arrange a free initial consultation here!