1. Be honest and accurate. This might seem like a no-brainer, but Neal says there are times when an individual manager may not be dealing in good faith. “You can’t be playing games with that stuff,” he says, or you run the risk of a lawsuit.

2. Include factual examples. The more specific you can be, the better. This is true whether you are giving an employee a good review or a bad one.

3. Make use of employees’ written job descriptions. Neal and others strongly recommend using job descriptions as a basis for evaluations, and they suggest bringing the description with you to your meeting with the employee under review. Of course, this requires you to actually write job descriptions for all your staff members. Hertz says practices that don’t have clear job descriptions are more likely to struggle come review time. “If I don’t have a good job description, what am I evaluating you on?” he asks. Still, some practices find this suggestion difficult to follow, even if they agree with it in principle. “I think it’s a good idea, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done,” says Needham.

4. Be based on performance, not personality. An employee’s attitude can be considered part of his performance, especially if his job involves dealing with the public. For the most part, however, evaluation standards should be as objectively measurable as possible.

5. Be positive and focused on improvement. That doesn’t mean that bad employees should be given glowing reviews, Neal stresses. Quite the opposite. “Even if someone isn’t performing up to standard, you should say, ‘We think you can do better; we’re going to help you.’”

6. Be a forum for discussing performance, not salary. Neal acknowledges that this suggestion is somewhat controversial, and he says businesses can and should base salary increases on performance. But they “shouldn’t commit to a particular salary level” during a performance review unless they’re certain they can make good on their promise.

7. Be conducted in as comfortable an environment as possible. It’s better not to meet an employee in your office unless you have space to get out from behind your desk and sit next to him. Reviews are already fraught with emotion and the possibility for conflict. There’s no need to have a desk between you.

8. Include target dates for improvement for problem employees. “You should really pin it down,” says Neal. Give the employee a month or six weeks to show improvement in the specific areas you identify, and schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss progress.

9. Be secure from snoops. Written evaluations should be kept under lock and key.

Experts also advise having your employees write self-evaluations as part of the process, as Gilani’s practice does. The purpose is to compare your view of the employee with his view of himself. It can be very enlightening.

Should evaluations be conducted during each employee’s anniversary-of-hire date, or is it better to conduct all of them at them same time of year? Experts are divided on this question. Neal is convinced that conducting reviews at different times during the year can invite trouble.

“People who do the evaluating can be in different psychological moods, and you sure wouldn’t want to be evaluated by someone who’s got a root canal tomorrow or just came back from an IRS audit,” he says. “People get real funny. You know, the holidays come around, and people can be in a great mood or a bad mood. Personal factors can come into play with the reviewer … and it’s only fair that you evaluate people when your [mood] is the same for each employee.”

But as a practical matter, this can be very challenging.

“It’s a burden for managers to do employee reviews; it really is,” says Gilani. “And to have to do them all at once would really be a problem. I have 23 direct reports. If I had to do 23 evaluations all at once, that’s all I’d be doing for three weeks.”

Bob Keaveney is the executive editor of Physicians Practice. A graduate of Towson University in Maryland, he has been writing about business and healthcare since 1995. Prior to joining Physicians Practice, he covered healthcare for The Daily Record, a newspaper focusing on business and legal issues. He can be reached at bkeaveney@physicianspractice.com.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of Physicians Practice.