Provide Feedback That Has an Impact

Effective Feedback With Impact Is Respectful

Phil Date Make your feedback have the impact it deserves by the manner and approach you use to deliver feedback. Your feedback can make a difference to people if you can avoid a defensive response.Time Required: Depends on the situation.Effective employee feedback is specific, not general. For example, say, "The report that you turned in yesterday was well-written, understandable, and made your points about the budget very effectively." Don't say, "good report."Useful feedback always focuses on a specific behavior, not on a person or their intentions. (When you held competing conversations during the meeting, when Mary had the floor, you distracted the people in attendance.)The best feedback is sincerely and honestly provided to help. Trust me, people will know if they are receiving it for any other reason.Successful feedback describes actions or behavior that the individual can do something about.Whenever possible, feedback that is requested is more powerful. Ask permission to provide feedback. Say, "I'd like to give you some feedback about the presentation, is that okay with you?"When you share information and specific observations, you are providing feedback that an employee might use. It does not include advice unless you have permission or advice was requested. Ask the employee what he or she might do differently as a result of hearing the feedback. You are more likely to help the employee change his approach than if you tell the employee what to do or how to change.Whether the feedback is positive or constructive, provide the information as closely tied to the event as possible. Effective feedback is well timed so that the employee can easily connect the feedback with his actions.Effective feedback involves what or how something was done, not why. Asking why is asking people about their motivation and that provokes defensiveness. Ask, "What happened?, How did that happen? How can you prevent that outcome in the future? How can I have done a better job of helping you? What do you need from me in the future?"Check to make sure the other person understood what you communicated by using a feedback loop, such as asking a question or observing changed behavior.Successful feedback is as consistent as possible. If the actions are great today, they're great tomorrow. If the policy violation merits discipline, it should always merit discipline.Feedback is communication to a person or a team of people regarding the affect their behavior is having on another person, the organization, the customer, or the team.Positive feedback involves telling someone about good performance. Make this feedback timely, specific, and frequent.Constructive feedback alerts an individual to an area in which his performance could improve. Constructive feedback is not criticism; it is descriptive and should always be directed to the action, not the person.The main purpose of constructive feedback is to help people understand where they stand in relation to expected and/or productive job behavior.Recognition for effective performance is a powerful motivator. Most people want to obtain more recognition, so recognition fosters more of the appreciated actions.if(zSbL

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Sample HR Letters

Need sample HR letters? These sample Human Resources letters give you examples that you can use to develop the letters that you use in your workplace.

You can use these sample HR letters to resign from your job, make job offers, document disciplinary action, reject applicants who were not selected for an interview, welcome new employees, and more. Currently, I offer over 100 sample HR letters on the site to provide guidance as you write your own - and that number climbs every week.

Find sample human resources letters. Are there more samples you'd like to see? These sample human resources letters were developed as the result of reader requests.

Image Copyright iStockphoto / Pali Rao

More Site Resources

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Sample Job Interview Questions for Employers to...

Want to figure out your candidate's level of skill in conflict resolution and disagreement? It's an important skill to have if he or she must work with other people. Knowing how to negotiate for your agenda or preferred path is critical in testing out ideas and potential solutions to problems. Disagreement ensures that the team reaches the best answers and solutions. See the sample questions.

Share the funniest, saddest, most hysterical, off-putting, right-on-target, and weirdest candidate responses and questions you've heard over the years.

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Establishing Credibility - Inspiring Trust in Others

Ensure that you build credibility on firm foundations.

© iStockphoto/Jezperklauzen

Would you attend a training course run by someone with no experience of his subject? Would you buy from a sales professional who had previously let you down? Or, would you go "above and beyond" for a leader who didn't routinely keep her word?

Chances are, you'd answer "no" to all of these questions. If you're going to invest your time, energy, and enthusiasm with someone, you want that person to be credible and worthy of your trust.

But what is credibility? Why is it important? And, how can you build it?

In this article, we'll answer these questions, and we'll look at why being credible is so important for a successful career.

The root of the word "credibility" is "credo," which means "I believe" in Latin. Put simply, credibility is the feeling of trust and respect that you inspire in others.

No single thing creates credibility. Rather, a combination of things must be in place for you to establish it.

Think about a time when you worked under a leader who had credibility. Chances are that she energized and excited her entire team. You knew that she would do the right things for the right reasons, and you trusted her judgment.

Credible leaders attract enthusiastic and committed followers, and people want to work for them. But credibility is important in many areas, not just in leadership roles.

For instance, sales professionals need credibility to be successful – people don't want to buy from someone they don't trust, or from a person who doesn't know about his product.

You also need credibility when you give presentations, deliver training, and sell your ideas.

No matter what your role or position, credibility is something that you have to earn. It takes time, patience, and consistency to build it. Follow the tips below to establish credibility.

If credibility were a pyramid, then your character and integrity would make up the foundation.

To build character, first identify the core values that you won't violate – people with strong character stand up for what they believe in, even when it goes against popular opinion. Spend time getting to know yourself and what you care about most, and be willing to defend your values and choices.

Integrity is also essential for credibility. You need to be known as someone who does the right things for the right reasons.

To preserve your integrity, think carefully about the choices and promises that you make, and never make a promise or commitment that you can't keep. When you make a mistake, own up to it immediately, and do whatever it takes to correct it.

You also need to be authentic. People who are authentic do what they say; there's no mystery about their intentions, or about how those intentions might translate to their actions. This is why it's important to know yourself inside and out, and to demonstrate authenticity in everything that you do.

The more expertise you have and can demonstrate, the greater your credibility.

To build expertise, choose a single area that is fundamentally important to your role, organization, or industry. This will help you focus your efforts and ensure that you don't become overwhelmed. For example, if you're in engineering, you could develop an expert knowledge of the materials that your products use, and you could then build out from this.

Also, make sure that you stay up-to-date on your industry. When you're informed about industry trends and developments, people will trust your judgment.

While your reputation for expertise is important, it's just as important to protect it and acknowledge what you don't know. When you guess, or operate in areas outside of your expertise without informing others, you run the risk of giving out false information, making bad decisions, and being shown to be wrong. This can undermine your reputation for expertise, and damage your credibility.

Tip:
Be careful in how you communicate your expertise; you don't want others to see you as arrogant or as a know-it-all. Stay humble about your accomplishments, and develop your emotional intelligence, so that you can communicate in a sensitive way.

People trust what they can see. When you're open and honest, others don't have to guess what your motivations or intentions are.

Keep this in mind when you interact with your clients, team, or suppliers. You inspire trust when you talk openly about your intentions, values, and goals.

Also, keep the lines of communication open, especially when you have bad news to share.

Self-disclosure, when you reveal information about yourself to others, is an important part of transparency. For instance, one study found that college professors who shared personal information were perceived as more credible than those who didn't. (The Johari Window concept helps you think about how you can build trust with self-disclosure.)

Your communication skills play an important role in your credibility. For example, people who listen attentively and make thoughtful, informed comments are often seen as more credible than those who don't listen well, or those who speak thoughtlessly.

Start by strengthening your active listening skills. When people are speaking, give them your full attention, and ask questions to clarify anything that you don't understand.

When communicating with others, speak clearly and confidently. Don't use industry jargon to make yourself sound more knowledgeable – instead, focus on eliminating barriers to communication, so that your listeners clearly understand your message. Also, don't exaggerate facts or stories; stick to the truth.

Have you ever worked with bosses, clients, or colleagues who were unprofessional? Perhaps they did a poor job controlling their emotions under stress. They might have disrespected others, failed to "do the detail," or made little effort with their appearance.

Professionalism is an important element in credibility because it shows others that you truly care about your relationships and your work.

To exhibit professionalism, control your emotions at work. Don't lash out at others when you're tired, stressed, or frustrated. When you're in an argument or negotiation, don't take others' comments or opinions personally. Do your best to remain objective, and keep emotion out of the discussion.

Come to work well-dressed. It might seem like a small matter, but how you present yourself says a lot about who you are and how you feel about yourself. When you dress in a professional and appropriate manner, you'll likely find that your self-confidence and self-respect get a boost as well.

Also, meet the deadlines that you've been set, always deliver high-quality work, and don't make excuses when you haven't performed well.

You establish credibility when you inspire trust in others, and it's important to your success, no matter what role you're in. It's especially important if you're in a leadership role.

To build your credibility, demonstrate honesty and integrity in everything that you do.

Work on building expertise, be transparent, be professional, and communicate clearly.

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Should Employees Share Rooms?

Do you ask your employees to share rooms during business travel? A 2007 Orbitz for Business study found that 24% of business travelers said that they have had to share a hotel room, either as a practice or on occasion, when traveling on business. One year later, just 14% of business travelers surveyed said that they share hotel rooms with coworkers.

It’s not illegal to ask employees to share rooms on business trips. So, employers ask employees to share rooms for a variety of reasons – but should they? I’ve heard pros and cons. Honestly? I’ve heard mostly cons from employees who universally dislike the practice. The pros come from executives and owners who are often not subjected to the same rules.

Employers defend the practice of employees sharing rooms with these reasons.

The employer wants to cut the cost of travel and entertainment. Economically, sharing rooms affects an employee’s ability to attend conferences, training, and business meetings because, without the shared rooms, only half of the eligible employees would be able to attend the event.
Some employers argue that sharing a room builds camaraderie and a sense of teamwork.
The employer would not have obtained the work contract if the cost savings of employees sharing rooms had not been factored into the bid. Employers argue that employees would rather have the work than their privacy.

In my contrary view, employees should never be asked to share a room with a coworker, not under any circumstances including saving money during tough economic times. While I'm not certain it's a legal issue - although I can certainly conjure up harassment scenarios - it is a respect issue.

Employees who travel for business to benefit their employer should be treated with the respect and regard that they deserve. This includes privacy, a place for downtime away from coworkers, and the opportunity to relax and rejuvenate without having to worry about the opinions, feelings, habits, and stuff of a coworker.

Possible violations of ADA by placing an employee with an accommodated medical condition in a situation where he or she does not have full privacy for the medications, medical equipment or room accommodations they may require. By requiring employees to share rooms, you violate their privacy and may cause them to disclose medical information they don’t want to share. Even if you require sharing rooms, an employee with a medical condition should be able to ask for a single room.

The potential benefits of camaraderie and team building are overwhelmed by the lack of privacy and the stress engendered by sharing a space with a stranger with whom the employee is not intimate. Employees are vulnerable when they sleep and even well-liked coworkers in the same room can interfere with sleep. And, in a shared setting, the employee gets no real downtime after working or traveling all day.

Let's face it. If you respect your employees, your employees should not have to listen to a coworker snore, smell their stinky socks, work around their toiletries in the bathroom, share the soap in the shower, listen in on their phone calls, deal with their clothing and hygiene habits, or put up with their late night work habits.

Working effectively daily with coworkers requires a certain amount of respect and privacy. Asking employees, who maintain their self-determined professional distance from each other at work, to violate these rules of conduct on the road, destabilizes patterns of interacting. Employees develop their comfort zones and behaviors that help them cope with the workplace, over time.

Employers cannot expect that the disruption of these distance and space needs will benefit employees. Seeing your coworker walk around a hotel room wearing a towel when, you are used to seeing her across a conference table, wearing a business suit, creates discomfort. While some employees may be unphased; others will be deeply uncomfortable. Why risk it?

An employee who is giving up hours of his or her free time, and spending time away from the family for a business purpose, should have a private room to retire to for breaks and in the evening. The employee should be able to call home without an audience, drink a few cocktails without a disapproving observer, work until the wee hours of the morning, or call it an early night without worrying about the needs of a coworker.

Employees who have just spent breakfast, lunch, and dinner together plus attended all day meetings with fellow employees, deserve a place for solitude and rejuvenation. Sharing a room is not a team building event and it may result in damaged work relationships even if both of the employees are respectful and mindful of adult behavior.

Business travel is stressful enough, and your employees are already voluntarily giving you hours of their time, without adding one more layer of potential stress and offensiveness. Give your employees the respect they deserve. Unless good friends ask to room together, employees should never be asked to share rooms.

The problem remains. Business travel costs continue to escalate and employers need to control costs. Hopefully, you're convinced that making employees share rooms is not the answer. If you're a large corporation with a travel department, you have likely implemented my solutions and suggestions already. But, other employers and HR departments may be interested in my 10 Tips to Reduce the Cost of Employee Travel.

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Top 10 Toughest Questions - Asked and Answered

Regular emails from readers ask hundreds of questions each year. Patterns emerge about the toughest situations you face in your organizations. These are the ten toughest, but most frequent, questions you send my way. I've written a how-to piece to answer each question you’ve asked. These articles address and answer your toughest questions.Copyright Sean FelSome people exude negativity. They don’t like their jobs or they don’t like their company. Their bosses are always jerks and they are always treated unfairly. The company is always going down the tube and customers are worthless. You know these negative Neds and Nellies – every organization has some – and you can best address their impact on you via avoidance. zSB(3,3)Copyright Digital Vision / Getty ImagesIn an earlier article, I gave you a strategic planning framework, samples, and examples for creating your organization’s mission statement, vision statement, and more. As a result of the strategic planning article, people ask: now that I know what all of this strategic planning should look like, how do I actually make strategic planning happen in my organization? This strategic planning question strikes at the heart of how to make change of any kind happen in your organization. Find out how. Copyright Joshua BlakeManagers perennially ask why employees don’t do what they are supposed to do. While part of the responsibility falls on choices individual employees make, managers need to shoulder part of the blame, too. Employees want to succeed at work. I don’t know a single person who gets up in the morning and says, “I think I’ll go to work to fail today.” Many of the reasons employee responsibility fails is due to a failure in the employee management systems. Copyright Marcin BalcerzakAre you feeling increasingly unhappy about your job? Do you find yourself day dreaming about other things you could be doing with the time you spend at work? Do you dread the thought of Monday mornings? Then it may be time for you to quit your job. Take a look. Diego CervoPracticing personal courage is necessary if you want to really resolve conflicts at work. Many people are afraid of conflict resolution. They feel threatened by conflict resolution because they may not get what they want if the other party gets what they want. Even in the best circumstances, conflict resolution is uncomfortable because people are usually unskilled. Eileen Bach / Getty ImagesAs an organization leader, manager or supervisor, you are responsible for creating a work environment that enables people to thrive. If turf wars, conflicts, disagreements and differences of opinion escalate into interpersonal conflict, you must intervene immediately. Conflict resolution, with you as mediator, is essential. Conflict resolution is an immediate priority for your organization. Copyright Trista WeibellDon't let your goals and resolutions fall by the wayside. Chances are that to achieve your dreams and live a life you love, those goals and resolutions are crucial. Goal setting and goal achievement are easier if you follow these six steps for effective and successful goal setting and resolution accomplishment. Copyright Getty Images / John FoxxDifficult people do exist at work. Difficult people come in every variety and no workplace is without them. How difficult a person is for you to deal with depends on your self-esteem, your self-confidence and your professional courage. Dealing with difficult people is easier when the person is just generally obnoxious or when the behavior affects more than one person. Dealing with difficult people is much tougher when they are attacking you or undermining your professional contribution. zSB(1,2)Copyright Mary GaschoYou're weary. You're frustrated. You're unhappy. You're demotivated. Your interaction with your boss leaves you cold. He's a bully, intrusive, controlling, picky and petty. He takes credit for your work, never provides positive feedback and misses each meeting he schedules with you. He's a bad boss, bad to the bone. Dealing with less than effective managers, or just plain bad managers and bad bosses, is a challenge too many employees face. These ideas will help you deal with your bad boss. Copyright Lise GagnePeople in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Here are twelve tips for building successful work teams. if(zSbL

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Training and Development Options for Employee...

One key factor in employee motivation and retention is the opportunity employees want to continue to grow and develop job and career enhancing skills. In fact, this opportunity to continue to grow and develop through training and development is one of the most important factors in employee motivation.

There are a couple of secrets about what employees want from training and development opportunities, however. Plus, training and development opportunities are not just found in external training classes and seminars. These ideas emphasize what employees want in training and development opportunities. They also articulate your opportunity to create devoted, growing employees who will benefit both your business and themselves through your training and development opportunities.

You can impact training and development significantly through the responsibilities in an employee’s current job.

Expand the job to include new, higher level responsibilities.
Reassign responsibilities that the employee does not like or that are routine.
Provide more authority for the employee to self-manage and make decisions.
Invite the employee to contribute to more important, department or company-wide decisions and planning.
Provide more access to important and desirable meetings.
Provide more information by including the employee on specific mailing lists, in company briefings, and in your confidence.
Provide more opportunity to establish goals, priorities, and measurements.
Assign reporting staff members to his or her leadership or supervision.
Assign the employee to head up projects or teams.
Enable the employee to spend more time with his or her boss.
Provide the opportunity for the employee to cross-train in other roles and responsibilities.

Employees appreciate the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills without ever leaving work or the workplace. Internal training and development brings a special plus. Examples, terminology, and opportunities reflect the culture, environment, and needs of your workplace.

Enable the employee to attend an internally offered training session. This session can be offered by a coworker in an area of their expertise or by an outside presenter or trainer.
Ask the employee to train other employees with the information learned at a seminar or training session. Offer the time at a department meeting or lunch to discuss the information or present the information learned to others. (Make this an expectation when employees attend external training and conferences.)
Perform all of the activities listed before, during, and after a training session to ensure that the learning is transferred to the employee’s job.
Purchase business books for the employee. Sponsor an employee book club during which employees discuss a current book and apply its concepts to your company.
Offer commonly-needed training and information on an Intranet, an internal company website.
Provide training by either knowledgeable employees or an outside expert in a brown bag lunch format. Employees eat lunch and gain knowledge about a valuable topic. (Some ideas include: investing in a 401(k), how to vary and balance investments, tips for public speaking, how to get along with the boss, and updates on new products that make work easier. These opportunities are unlimited; survey employees to pinpoint interests.)
The developers and other interested employees at a client company recently put on a day long conference with lunch and all of the trappings of an external conference at a local conference center. Attended by interested employees, the conference sessions were almost all taught by internal staff on topics of interest to their internal audience. Picture a "real" day long conference and you'll see the opportunity. Employees were pumped up beyond belief; they learned and enjoyed the day and gained new respect for the knowledge and skills of their coworkers.

Especially to develop new skills and ideas, employee attendance at external training is a must. Attaining degrees and university attendance enhance the knowledge and capabilities of your staff while broadening their experience with diverse people and ideas.

Enable the employee to attend an external seminar, conference, speaker, or training event.
Perform all of the activities listed before, during, and after a training session to ensure that the learning is transferred to the employee’s job.
Pay for the employee to take online classes and identify low or no cost online (and offline) training.
Pay for memberships in external professional associations with the understanding that employees will attend meetings, read the journals, and so forth and regularly update coworkers.
Provide a flexible schedule so the employee can take time to attend university, college, or other formal educational sessions.
Provide tuition assistance to encourage the employee's pursuit of additional education.

I promised several motivation and retention “secrets” relative to employee training and development. These are key factors in multiplying the value of the training and development you provide.

Allow employees to pursue training and development in directions they choose, not just in company-assigned and needed directions.
Have your company support learning, in general, and not just in support of knowledge needed for the employee’s current or next anticipated job. Recognize that the key factor is keeping the employee interested, attending, and engaged.

The development of a life-long engaged learner is a positive factor for your organization no matter how long the employee chooses to stay in your employ. Use these training and development activities to ensure that you optimize the employee's motivation and potential retention.

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Characteristics and Competencies for HR Leaders

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), in Leading Now, Leading the Future: What Senior HR Leaders Need to Know, identifies eight leadership skills essential for senior Human Resources leaders. If you are a member, you can access the survey findings.

"Successful senior HR leaders consistently show executives in the C-suite that they understand the broad operations and processes driving business," said former SHRM President and CEO Laurence G. O'Neil. "Equally important is the ability to explain the role of human capital issues and solutions in the context of broader business operations linking finance, operations, and marketing."

Essential HR Leadership Skills

Essential HR leadership skills identified in the SHRM study include these:

Knowledge of business, HR and organizational operations,
Strategic thinking and critical/analytical thinking,
Leading change,
Effective communication,
Credibility,
Results orientation and drive for performance,
Ethical behavior, and
Persuasiveness and the ability to influence others.

For senior HR professionals employed in global organizations, SHRM found that they need to possess both a global mindset and the ability to be flexible in order to adapt to changing global business needs.

Ethical behavior was also identified as key for HR leaders. Emerging skills that HR leaders will need to develop include global intelligence and technological savvy.

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More About Strategic HR Leaders

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How to Respond to a Reference Check Request

Responding to a reference check request can be tricky. Fear of reprisal and lawsuits keep many employers from responding at all. These recommendations will help you respond reasonably to reference checking requests while protecting the legitimate interests of your company and your current employees.

First, follow your company's established policy. Many companies request that managers send written reference requests to Human Resources. If the manager's reference is positive, however, you can agree to have the manager provide a verbal reference directly to an employer.

Anything that is sent in written format should come from Human Resources, or HR staff should review the response for consistency and protecting the best interests of the company. A common reference checking format asks for the former employee's:

job title, and occasionally, job responsibilities,final salary,dates of employment, andprovides a checklist that asks the former employer to rank such characteristics as "teamwork" and "dependability."

This paperwork is best left to Human Resources - at least, ask the HR staff to review any written response you may be thinking of sending. I do not recommend answering questions that ask you to numerically rate a former employee on any aspect of their work or work characteristics. Numeric ratings are not comparable based on any shared meaning of the definition of the term, nor is the meaning of the numbers on a numeric scale defined on these forms.

Second, check to ensure the former employee's signature, authorizing the reference check, is on the paperwork sent by the requesting company. Without the former employee's signature, no information should be provided.

If the manager can, with few reservations, recommend the former employee, in consultation with HR staff, the manager may return the call of the inquiring employer. When responding to a phone call, the manager should make certain that the employee's signature authorizing the reference check is on file with Human Resources before returning the phone call.

When a former employee was a good employee, and left your company on good terms (perhaps a spouse relocated and the distance was not commutable), you want to give the former employee assistance to find a new position.

Or, perhaps you have been used as a reference by an employee who reported to you at one time, although not most recently. If you have positive comments to make about the employee, you may respond to the potential employer with the positive comments you can contribute.

Answer only the questions that you are comfortable answering if you receive a reference request phone call or document. A manager should only speak to areas of the employee's skills and experience about which he has direct knowledge. There are several questions a manager should not answer:

These are the kinds of reference check questions a potential employer will ask if you return a reference checking phone call.

If the employee left your company under a cloud, whether the employee was a bad fit for their job, a non-contributing employee for other reasons, or unmanageable, I recommend you refer the call or the form to Human Resources staff for a standard response.

Sometimes unusual circumstances surround an employee's leaving your company. Perhaps an employee was watching pornography on his computer - yes, he asked me to be his reference. Another former employee may have threatened violence or committed a violent act while employed by your firm. While these former employees will rarely list your company as a reference, be prepared. These calls should be sent to HR staff for the standard response.

There is a caveat here, however. I recommend talking with your attorney before responding to any reference check about a potentially violent employee. If you fail to reveal violent behavior to a potential employer, and the former employee commits a violent act while in the employ of the new employer, your company can be liable for not revealing this information. So, check with your attorney in any unusual circumstances.

I don't recommend giving former employees a generic reference letter. Once a document exists, it lives forever. I have had prospective employees give me copies of letters that were 10 and 20 years out of date, sometimes barely legible from multiple photocopy sessions.

After a certain period of time passes, you have no idea what kind of employee your former employee has become, unless he or she is the rare exception who stays in touch. And, you never know how your letter will be used or how your words will be interpreted. Adopt a policy that states managers are never to give written, generic reference letters.

Inform the former employee that your company will be happy to provide employment confirmation from Human Resources to specific employers who inquire directly.

See some final thoughts about reference checks.

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Sample Formal Employee Thank You Letter

Gratitude Is Expressed in a Formal Thank You

Image © Sheer Photo Inc. / Getty Images

Here is a sample thank you letter that an employer can write to an employee to recognize the employee's good work. This is a more formal employee thank you letter sample. Keep in mind that a thank you letter is also appropriate from coworkers, employees in different departments, managers, supervisors, and executives, as well as from the employee's boss.

Thank you letters and other employee recognition methods are well-received when they are presented effectively:

Timely to the event or contribution for which you are recognizing the employee.
As specific as possible about why you are recognizing the employee. In addition to wanting the employee to feel rewarded and recognized, you are also communicating the actions or behaviors that you'd like to see more of from the employee.Randomly presented so that employees don't begin to feel as if every time they make a contribution, a formal thank you letter will be forthcoming from the managerFrequent thank you letters are an excellent addition to a leader's work tool kit.

Dear Mary,

Today's presentation went very well and was well received by the department managers; I was also pleased to see that the team accomplished its key goals. I want to personally thank you for informally assisting your project team to stay on track and on target to meet their goals.

Without your willingness to step up and, despite some push back from team members, persist in keeping the team on track, the project would certainly have strayed off course. That would have been bad for business results this year.

Specifically, your scheduling of meetings with a specific purpose, your use of an agenda with time allotments, your meeting minutes distributed within 24 hours, and your excellent meeting facilitation really helped the team progress.

On the creative side, taking the team on a field trip to see what several non-competing companies had done on a similar project appears to have been a key success factor, too.

Again, thank you. The project was well worth your time and investment and, on behalf of the management team, I want you to know that we really appreciate your efforts.

Regards,

Alison

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Believe What You See

Attentiveness, eye contact, body language and facial expressions are nonverbal communications that can tell you much about the candidates you consider hiring.

Watch the listening and interactive behavior of your candidate. He should act as if he is engaged by leaning slightly forward in his chair to close some of the distance between himself and the interviewer. You want to hire a candidate who can comfortably put his portfolio on your desk to take notes, yet not take up too much of your space. You want an employee who can maintain comfortable eye contact without staring or forced attentiveness.

If the candidate spends the interview with his eyes moving all over the room, rarely looking at you, this can signal a lack of confidence – or worse – he doesn’t care. Long, forced eye contact can indicate an overly aggressive person who does not care about your comfort. And, if he doesn’t care about your comfort during the interview, that behavior won’t get better when you hire him.

Listen also to the candidate’s responses to your questions. Did he hear your question? Did he answer succinctly and share stories, or ramble incessantly off topic? The former tells you he prepared for the interview and has success stories to share. The latter signals unprepared, ill-at-ease, or that he didn’t care enough to pay attention.

”What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson in one of my favorite quotations. And, nothing is as communicative as the facial expressions and body language of your candidates. Whole books have been written interpreting facial expressions and body language. The key to listening to their nonverbal communication is whether their facial expressions and body language match the words spoken.

Facial expressions that fail to match the words spoken can indicate serious discomfort or lying – neither desirable behaviors in a candidate. A candidate that never makes eye contact and talks to a spot over your shoulder is uncomfortable and demonstrating a lack of confidence. You want to hire an employee whose facial expressions are consistent with and punctuate her words.

Body language speaks loudly, too. Is the candidate leaning back in his seat with his legs crossed at the knee? He’s too relaxed for an interview setting. Has he taken over your whole desk with his arms and accessories? He’s overly aggressive. Does he lean back with his hands crossed behind his head? This is aggressive interview behavior in the extreme. Don’t expect less aggressive behavior if you hire him.

If the candidate makes a statement and looks away from you or appears nervous, she’s probably not telling the truth. If she stares into your eyes as she tells her story, she may be fabricating. If she taps her pen constantly, twists her jewelry at the end of every sentence, strokes her hair every few minutes, she is sending all sorts of messages about her discomfort – with the interview setting or with her skills and abilities in general? It’s hard to tell. Listen to what they are not saying.

Interviewing and hiring people who will be great employees who fit well in your organization is a challenge. Listening to the nonverbal communication of your candidates can tell you as much about the candidates as their spoken words, their references, and their experience. Nonverbal communication matters.

Interested in the advice we give candidates for your jobs? Take a look at The Interview Advantage: How to Use Nonverbal Communication to Impress. “When interviewing for employment you might think that if you're the candidate with the best answers to the interview questions, you'll get the job. In fact that isn't typically the case.”

Interested in why nonverbal communication is so important when hiring? Read the beginning ...

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