After receiving a poor performance review, you may experience any number of emotions from anger and sadness to confusion. This review can affect future promotions, pay increases, and your self-confidence in the workplace. However, before you fight back and become defensive, here are several things you need to do first.
Calm Down and Reflect
Acting hastily out of anger is only going to make matters worse. Before you say or do anything, give yourself time to calm down. Go home for the night and reflect on the situation. Did your boss provide examples that you can analyze? Did they give you a full report that you can read and review? Take the time to think through what was said during your performance review before you say or do something that you will later regret.
Be Honest with Yourself
As you reflect upon the examples and the comments made during your performance review, you must be honest with yourself. Is your boss justified in saying these things? Are there areas where improvements could be made? In most situations, when you are honest with yourself, you will recognize that there is some truth in what they are saying, even if you don’t 100% agree.
Re-Evaluate Your Goals
Following your performance review, take a close look at your career goals. Does this poor review affect these goals in any way? With the new information presented to you, are there things you can change or new goals you can set to improve in the workplace? A goal is a way for you to better yourself. Following your performance review, you have a clear view of your weaknesses in the office and it becomes a great starting place for setting new short-term and long-term goals.
Create a Plan to Improve
What are you going to do with the information presented to you? Are you going to let it fester inside you and tear down your self-confidence and excitement for the job? Or, are you going to use it to create a plan for improvement? The choice is up to you.
As you carefully analyze the information and are honest with yourself, write down things and areas where you can improve. Then, create a detailed plan to help you make these changes. Outline all of the steps you are going to take to improve and make the necessary changes. Set measurable goals for each step so you can see your progress and hang up this detailed action plan so you can remind yourself of it often. At least once a month, look at this detailed plan and make sure you are still on track and make any adjustments that may be needed.
Receiving criticism and poor feedback can be devastating. However, it is also a wonderful opportunity to make a change and improve yourself as both an employee and a person. Use the above tips to help you work through a poor performance review and become a better employee.
