Every employee has certain inalienable rights regarding the management of his or her performance. Whether these rights are ever mentioned or not, every employee feels innately entitled to these basic expectations. And any manager who violates these rights finds out very quickly how strongly employees feel that these are not rights to be taken lightly. Most of these rights relate to feedback about performance, which is the cornerstone of motivation. To ensure motivation, take great care to deliver timely communication regarding how well each employee is performing
in relation to her or his goals. If you do not, you will have violated
one of the rights discussed in this chapter.

EMPLOYEE RIGHTS TO PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK
The right to know when performance falls short of or
exceeds expectations
Tell the employee when there is a gap between acceptable performance and current performance. Employees are fired every day who could have been salvaged and made into valuable contributors if someone had communicated to them that they needed to change. The workplace loses too many skilled employees this way. Just as critical to a successful workforce is letting great performers know that their performance is spectacular. Everyone needs some type of reinforcement. If you think that not mentioning an employee’s extraordinary performance will keep that employee humble and motivated, you are very wrong. Some employees exceed expectations just to garner that feedback. If they do not receive it,
they stop giving as much.

The right to receive feedback as soon as possible when
performance does not measure up to management’s
expectations
There is nothing to be gained by delaying feedback on poor performance, but consider all that can be lost. First, the time that will be lost as the poor performance continues will cost your company money and perhaps have a negative impact on quality. Second, the poorly performing employee is not the only person affected, since most people don’t work in a vacuum. Other employees may be hampered by this employee’s inefficiencies, or their
own performance may deteriorate. Customer service may suffer, and internal partners or allies may experience problems. Third, telling the employee as soon as possible may keep a very small problem from developing into a bad habit. Conversely, nothing has the emotional zing of praising a job well done at the moment it is completed.

No employee should be passed on, passed over, or fired until
he or she has received performance feedback and has been
given the chance to improve
In many organizations, employees are not given timely feedback on poor performance because their managers are uncomfortable about saying anything negative. Instead, the managers pass poorly performing employees on to other departments. The company still loses productivity every day, since the employee’s performance has not improved

10.Taken From: 201 Ways to Turn Any Employee Into a STAR Performer