What To Do After Receiving A Negative Performance Review…

Nobody likes to receive negative feedback, and this can be especially crushing when it happens at work.

If your boss has just given you a negative performance review, you may feel shocked, hurt, angry or confused.

You may not agree with your superior in their assessment of you, or feel like some of it may have been true.

What is the best course of action when you get a negative performance review?

We outline it in this article:

Stay Calm

The most important piece of advice to take away from this article is that you must stay calm during any unpleasant situation at work.

While it may anger you to hear your boss say you’re not trying your best or hurt your feelings if you hear that your work is not good enough, don’t react!

If you get visibly upset, yell or cry at the office, it can irreparably ruin your professional reputation.

Regardless of what you hear during your performance review, you must remain stoic and let your boss finish what they have to say.

Consider Challenging Your Boss

The best strategy to do following a negative appraisal that you believe is incorrect is to ask your boss for a meeting at a later time at which you can challenge them.

This will not only give you a chance to consider carefully what you want to say, but also to gather data to back up your claims.

You need to think carefully about how to approach the situation; if your boss stated that you’re simply not trying hard enough, that may be hard to prove wrong because it’s a generalised idea.

However, it may be easier to dispute facts with other facts.

For example, if your superior believes your sales averages are lower this year than last year, that is easy enough to correct.

When you do meet with your boss to challenge them, be respectful and matter-of-fact, don’t let your personal opinions or feelings dictate your approach.

Ask For Feedback On How To Improve

If you feel that your boss’ feedback was more or less on point, you may be worried about your future with the company.

This provides a great opportunity to show how committed you are to the job and how much you are willing to improve.

Following the feedback, ask your boss about ways in which you can improve to meet your job requirements.

If you ask your manager for help through mentoring, additional training or simple advice, you will not only benefit by learning more, but will also get on your boss’ good side as it will be obvious you are ready and willing to work hard in order to succeed.

Thanks again

Mark Williams

Head of Training and Development

MTD Training