HR for the Lazy

Along with the management and OD stuff, I spend a lot of time acting as an HR leader. Managers often ask me how to word things - how they ought to say things (on performance reviews and counseling forms) so that the intent is clear (and more importantly, so they don't put their foots in their mouths).

Here is a trio of books by Paul Falcone that can give you a starting point. I hesitate to share these, because my fear is that someone will copy the verbiage word-for-word. That would not be good, because if you want to improve performance, the last thing you want to do is treat employees like machines and spew generic xeroxed counseling forms at them.

Employee name here, I have asked you to this meeting to discuss your performance related to insert area of poor performance here. On insert date of infraction, explain what happened. According to our performance standards, we expect all employees tell them what you want...

Here are a couple of suggestions for Paul's next book of wordings:

• 101 ways to tell your boss to back off
• 255 phrases that can help you shut down a chronic meeting over-participator
• 3000 questions you should ask hiring managers to determine if they will be a joy or a pain to work for

That last one has real promise. Your suggestions?

101 Sample Write-Ups for Documenting Employee Performance Problems by Paul Falcone.

2600 Phrases for Effective Performance Reviews: Ready-to-Use Words and Phrases That Really Get Results by Paul Falcone

96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire by Paul Falcone

Comments

[Dan McCarthy]

Lisa –
For over 20 years, I’ve had managers ask for help in writing performance appraisal comments. And our (training and HR) response to them has always been to teach them how to set expectations and goals, coach, provide feedback, document, yada, yada, yada.
Well, after sitting at my computer staring at a blank performance appraisal form for about 20 minutes trying to think of yet another way to describe how well one of my employees “collaborate” , I’ve started to realize that maybe they’re right. So I’ve started secretly referring them to books like Paul’s. I haven’t tried one myself…… yet.

Here are some other ideas:
409 phrases to describe development needs
104 ways to say no in a nice way
201 ways to disagree with someone (in a collaborative way of course)