“Caroline, you have failed to meet the deadlines way too many times this quarter, We expect more dedication from you this quarter.” How many of us are ready to face negative reviews about our work like this? Not all employees are usually open to negative performance review. Sometimes, it is demotivating to listen to negative performance reviews and employees also tend to get defensive at times.
As a manager it is hard to give negative performance, particularly when your organizational work culture is positive and you still have to give the review because it is important for the team and the company’s growth.
Giving a negative performance review doesn’t have to be a dreaded experience. When done right, it becomes a constructive conversation that helps employees grow and improve. Here’s how to navigate this challenging but necessary part of management.
The key to delivering an effective negative performance review is thorough preparation. You can’t wing it and expect good results.
Gather Specific Evidence:
Schedule Thoughtfully:
Prepare Your Mindset:
Having a clear structure helps both you and your employee navigate the conversation more effectively. Here’s a proven agenda that works:
Set the tone:
Example opening: “Thanks for meeting with me, Sarah. I wanted to set aside time today to discuss some concerns I have about [specific area], and more importantly, talk through how we can work together to get you back on track. I value your contributions to the team, and I want to make sure we’re supporting your success.”
Present the facts:
The Situation-Behavior-Impact Framework:
Example: “In our Q3 client deliverables (situation), three out of five reports were submitted 2-3 days past the deadline (behavior). This caused our client to miss their board meeting deadline, and they escalated a complaint to our VP (impact).”
Ask open-ended questions:
Listen actively:
Work together on solutions:
Create an action plan:
Summarize and confirm:
Example closing: “So to recap: Over the next 30 days, we’ll focus on [specific goals]. I’ll check in with you weekly, and we’ll have a formal follow-up on [date]. I believe you can turn this around, and I’m here to support you. Do you have any questions before we wrap up?”
The words you choose matter immensely. Here are proven phrases that deliver tough feedback while maintaining respect and clarity.
✓ “I’ve noticed some patterns I’d like to discuss with you…”
✓ “I want to talk about [area] because it’s impacting [team/results/customers]…”
✓ “I need to bring up some concerns about [specific issue]…”
✓ “Let’s discuss some areas where I’d like to see improvement…”
✗ “You’ve really messed up lately…”
✗ “I’m disappointed in you…”
✗ “Everyone is complaining about your work…”
✓ “I’ve observed that you’ve missed five deadlines in the past month…”
✓ “The quality of the reports has declined—here are three specific examples…”
✓ “I’ve received feedback from three team members about communication gaps…”
✓ “The data shows your sales numbers are 30% below target for Q3…”
✗ “You’re always late with everything…”
✗ “Your work is terrible…”
✗ “You never follow through…”
✗ “Everyone thinks you’re not pulling your weight…”
✓ “When deadlines are missed, it creates a bottleneck for the entire team…”
✓ “This is affecting our client relationships and our reputation…”
✓ “The lack of communication is causing confusion and rework…”
✓ “This performance gap is preventing the team from hitting our quarterly goals…”
✗ “You’re making us all look bad…”
✗ “You’re the reason we’re failing…”
✗ “I don’t know why we even hired you…”
✓ “What’s your view on this situation?”
✓ “Help me understand what’s been happening from your side…”
✓ “What challenges are you facing that I might not be aware of?”
✓ “How do you see this differently than I do?”
✓ “What factors have been making this difficult for you?”
✗ “What’s your excuse this time?”
✗ “Do you even care about your job?”
✗ “Why can’t you just do what you’re supposed to?”
✓ “Going forward, I need you to [specific action]…”
✓ “The expectation is that [clear standard]…”
✓ “Success in this role requires [specific behaviors/outcomes]…”
✓ “Here’s what improvement looks like: [measurable criteria]…”
✗ “You need to do better…”
✗ “Just try harder…”
✗ “Figure it out…”
✓ “What support do you need from me to be successful?”
✓ “I can arrange training on [skill area] if that would help…”
✓ “Let’s schedule weekly check-ins so I can help you stay on track…”
✓ “I’ll connect you with [mentor/resource] who can help with [specific area]…”
✗ “This is all on you to fix…”
✗ “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself…”
✓ “If we don’t see improvement by [date], we’ll need to [next step in performance management process]…”
✓ “This is a formal warning. Without improvement, your employment may be at risk…”
✓ “We need to see [specific improvement] within [timeframe], or we’ll need to discuss whether this role is the right fit…”
✗ “You’re going to get fired if you don’t shape up…”
✗ “One more mistake and you’re out…”
✓ “I believe you can turn this around, and I’m committed to supporting you…”
✓ “I’ve seen you succeed before, and I know you’re capable of meeting these expectations…”
✓ “Let’s work together to get you back on track…”
✓ “I’m optimistic that with these changes, you’ll be successful in this role…”
✗ “I hope you can prove me wrong…”
✗ “Let’s see if you can actually do this…”
Manager: “Thanks for meeting with me, James. I wanted to discuss the project deadlines over the past two months. I’ve noticed that four out of six deliverables have been submitted late—the client report was three days late, the Q3 analysis was two days late, and both monthly updates were a day late. This is causing issues for the team because other people’s work depends on yours being done on time. What’s your perspective on this?”
Employee: “I’ve been really overwhelmed. The team size was cut and I’m doing what used to be two people’s jobs.”
Manager: “I appreciate you sharing that. You’re right that we’ve had headcount changes. Let me ask—have you brought up the workload concern before now? And are there specific projects that could be deprioritized or delegated?”
Employee: “I probably should have said something sooner. I didn’t realize it was affecting others this much.”
Manager: “Okay, so let’s create a plan. First, I want you to send me your current project list by end of day tomorrow, and we’ll triage what’s truly urgent versus what can wait. Second, I need you to flag any project within 48 hours of being at risk, so we can problem-solve together. Third, let’s set up a 15-minute weekly check-in every Monday to review your priorities. How does that sound?”
Employee: “That would really help, actually.”
Manager: “Great. Going forward, the expectation is no missed deadlines without proactive communication. If you see a conflict coming, I need to know immediately so we can adjust. I’ll check in with you in two weeks to see how it’s going. I know you’re capable of strong work—let’s get you the support you need to deliver on time.”
Manager: “Sarah, I need to discuss the quality of the client presentations over the past month. In the last three presentations, we’ve had significant errors—incorrect data in the revenue slides, outdated competitor information, and misaligned branding. This is impacting our credibility with clients. Can you walk me through what’s happening?”
Employee: “I’ve been rushing to meet the tight turnaround times the account team is giving me.”
Manager: “I understand time pressure is real. But these errors are serious—the CFO caught the revenue mistake, which was embarrassing for our whole team. Even under time pressure, accuracy is non-negotiable. What could you do differently to ensure quality even when timelines are tight?”
Employee: “Maybe I could ask for an extra day, or get someone to review before it goes out?”
Manager: “Both good ideas. Here’s what I need: First, implement a personal quality checklist—data verification, source dates, brand guidelines. Second, build in peer review for any client-facing materials. Third, if you’re given an unrealistic deadline, escalate it to me immediately. I’ll back you up. But the errors need to stop. Does that make sense?”
Employee: “Yes, that’s fair.”
Manager: “Let’s check back in three weeks. I want to see zero errors in client deliverables during that time. If you need help, my door is open. I know you can deliver quality work—I’ve seen you do it before.”
This is one of the most unprofessional things that a manager can do. Remember that you are a manager and it is your responsibility to give unbiased and accurate performance review to your employees.
It is sometimes hard to let go of your personal equation with your employees, but never give a negative performance review based on your personal relation with them.
No matter the review is negative or positive, you should not let your personal opinions affect the review.
It is understandable that it is hard to give a face to face negative performance review but never choose e-mail to do it. The very reason for a performance review is to improve performance of the employee.
If you do it over e-mail, you lose the scope to discuss what the problem actually is and it can also affect the employee and instead of improving their performance, this might be demoralizing. So avoid using e-mail for negative performance reviews.
This is one of the worst nightmares of every employee. Giving a negative performance review before everyone is not only unprofessional but also demoralizing.
Appreciation can be done before everyone – only in exceptional cases – but negative performance review cannot be given before other staff.
Shaming doesn’t help anybody, instead it just spreads negativity in the whole workplace. So public shaming is a big NO!
When giving a negative performance review, you have to remember that it is a discussion and you are two professionals participating in it to find a solution.
Using foul language or yelling at the employee just to prove that you are right isn’t a right way to evaluate anyone’s performance.
Nobody deserves to be treated that way. So never, use foul language or yell at your employees. According to the workplace laws in some countries, legal action can be take against such behavior.
As a manager, you have to be unbiased and fair when evaluating performance of your employees. Bias can be of any kind, be it gender bias, age bias, disability bias, religious bias or even marital status bias.
You have to also take care of not letting the recency bias affect the performance review. No matter what the review is be polite and be fair.
When you know that you have to give negative performance to an employee. Find something positive about their review to start with.
If you cannot, then try to evaluate their previous work and see if you can find something good about their performance. Because, if you start with a negative review, employees might get defensive at times. So start with something that is honest.
For example: “Hey Paul, You have contributed a lot to the organization in all the previous quarters.” instead of starting with “Paul, this quarter looks very dry. You have to work on a lot of things”
Sometimes, you can be left in situations where you do not have anything positive to start the review with. Do not push yourself so much, just be honest, do not lie just to start it on a positive note.
Being well-prepared is ahead is good for any kind of meeting. Performance review is a very delicate and important meeting that you have with your employees.
You have to be well-prepared with specific details of their performance. How can you practically achieve it? As a human, you can’t keep note of everything an employee does. So we have a solution for you. Using a performance review software that allows you to keep track of the smallest achievement of an employee.
How Engagedly Can Help – You can use Engagedly app to assign tasks, set goals, keep track of them and many more. So being prepared ahead will help you give an accurate review be it negative or positive.
Sometimes, employees need help from you too to deal with their performance issues. When you give them a negative feedback, you might also have to discuss and uncover what the root of the problem is and help them find a solution for it.
How Engagedly Can Help – Once you have a discussion with your employee, see where they need help and assign courses to them using the ‘Learning’ module of Engagedly. Here you can add different types of courses, you can give them read ups and also quizzes to see how much they have learnt.
It is important to document any discussion you have with your staff. Ask your employee to document the performance review so that you can use it to compare with the previous and coming quarters’ performances.
It is not possible to document the entire discussion so here are a few things that you should document in particular.
Taking care of the questions you ask and the statements you make during a negative performance review is very important. You cannot ask questions that bring back the classroom culture back or are offensive to the employees.
Take care that the statements you make while giving a negative performance review are polite enough and do not demotivate or discourage the employee.
Help the employee if you can, if their performance issues persist you can take action on it. There is no need to get picky and hurtful about their performance during a negative performance review.
With more teams working remotely or in hybrid mode, performance reviews (including negative ones) often happen online. Here’s how to adapt:
Do:
Don’t:
Giving negative feedback isn’t just about what you say — how you say it matters, especially in preserving trust, safety, and fairness. Here are some vital considerations:
Performance review processes are changing with time. Most organizations now use performance management tools to get all the review activities under one roof. The tool helps in setting goals, tracking weekly, monthly, and yearly performance, allows managers to check-in frequently, and provides a holistic view of an employee’s performance.
We hope the do’s and don’ts for a bad performance review discussed in this article will be helpful to you. Share your thoughts on how to give a bad performance review in the comments below.
