Chapter 9. When the News Is Bad

Giving a performance appraisal to a poor performer is one of the more unpleasant tasks of being a supervisor, but like it or not, it’s part of the job. How would you deal with this situation?

  • Pamela: We both know that there have been problems with your performance. Although we’ve discussed what’s wrong on several occasions, let’s use this time to see if we can clarify where your performance needs improvement.

  • William: But I have been trying. Do you mean that I can’t get a satisfactory rating this time?

  • Pamela: Yes. I wish I could tell you otherwise. We have to have a consistent record on file documenting a number of the problems we’ve experienced throughout the year—that’s only fair. I believe that this does not come ...

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