A TRAINING MANUAL PROVIDED BY

GIVING EMPLOYEE REVIEWS

Giving your associate a review does not mean they are doing a bad job. Reviews are all about discovering and labeling behaviors that could be opportunity points for your team members as well as pointing out what they excel at. If training in the moment is our on-field coaching then reviews are evaluating the game footage and making a new strategy for the next round of games. 

WHEN SHOULD I GIVE A REVIEW AND TO WHO?

First things first…who gets a review?

The easy answer is – Everyone. 

From the manager to the person who comes in on Tuesdays just to help with freight processing – give everyone on your staff a review so that the process is not only fair but efficient. You want to give everyone room to see what they are doing well and where their opportunities are because it makes your overall team performance better. So, don’t skip anyone! 

As to when you’ll need to do reviews, that’s a little more varied. For the most part, you will find yourself only really needing to complete annual reviews for your staff. This will help make sure that employees are still knowledgeable of procedures and expected behaviors. You will want to check your state guidelines to ensure that you are not required to have reviews on file for any additional timeframes.

In addition to annual reviews, you may want to complete additional reviews when you have new hires or employees learning new processes or sections. 

Here are some suggested time frames on when to do reviews:

WHAT GOES ON A REVIEW?

A review is meant to help improve or highlight performance of an employee. Therefore, you want to make sure that if you are creating an employee evaluation form you are doing so in a way that is going to encourage your employee for the future. Give yourself the space to talk about all of the things that are important to your store and your employee’s role within it, while also allowing for conversation for development. 

Remember even your biggest star has something they can add to their work that could take them to new heights, so create a review that gives room to talk about everyone’s progress, goals, and accomplishments. 

General Ideas to Include on a Review Form:

Reviews are generally based on metrics or the method of which we measure things. For a review the easiest place to start is by taking the job description for each position and creating either a simple ranking system of how well each person in that position accomplishes what their basic position requires of them or a conversational approach to evaluate strengths and opportunities within those requirements. Many employees these days find more power in learning how they can improve rather than just giving a numbered score, so keep that in mind when creating your review form. 

Beyond that, you can create your own way of measuring your employee. What values and cultures are you hoping to cultivate in your team? How do you expect customers to be interacted with? There are a wide variety of approaches to reviews. 

Some base things to consider including in your review:

Once you have a general idea of what you want to base your metrics off of for your review you can create the general outline of what you think it should look like. 

Breaking the review down into the different categories makes it easier to approach each section with a clear direction, allowing you to think of examples that can support each category and specific idea that you have listed. 

It’s also helpful when deciding what to put on a review to consider this a time for goal setting. What pieces of the puzzle can you put together that will help you and your team members set your store up for success in the next year together?  

When creating a review for your employee make sure that you include some space for both you and your employee to think of what those goals might be and how you want to continue working towards them.

For a sample breakdown of what these things might look like, check out the sample Employee Review Template below:

TEAM MEMBER PERFORMANCE REVIEW TEMPLATE: 

Team Member Name: ___________________________________  

Team Member Role:__________________________________  Date: ___________________

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: ______________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

Effective Language and Valuation Processes for Reviews:

Of course, there is more that goes into creating a review. Once you know how you want to structure it, you need to know what kind of language and evaluations to include on the document itself. 

When filling out the review document, you want to keep the following in mind:

1. Be Specific –  Ensure that the language you choose to use is not only specific to the person, but in the information that you give them regarding their jobs. If they don’t know exactly what the behavior or task is you are referring to, they can’t be expected to fulfill or improve it.
2. Be Quantifiable – When giving a review, it’s really important to make sure that all metrics and future goals included on the review are able to be measured. Giving a general, “do better here” won’t actually help a person know how or when they have completed the assignment. Keep actionable items fully capable of being evaluated as they are completed.
3. Be Realistic – As you give feedback and prepare metrics for your employees to hit, make sure that all goals are practical. If you expect one employee to single-handedly curate thousands of subscription orders with a less than .01% margin of error, you might be disappointed when they are overworked, frustrated, and constantly “underperforming” to your expectation. Give room for someone to deliver on a goal that is attainable, while still a bit challenging. 
4. Be Relevant – Don’t give someone a goal/metric that isn’t necessary or required of them, just to have a one size fits all review. If you have an employee who only comes in to process freight once a week, they won’t have a measurable goal for customer interaction or subscription management, while someone on the sales floor may not have a certain amount of boxes they need to process before the end of their shift. It’s important to keep goals and metrics relevant to the employee at hand. 
5. Be Timely – As always giving a logical and manageable time frame is key in setting expectations. And with reviews you want to make sure that your associate knows how much time they have to complete a goal or change a behavior, so make sure that’s included in the process. You also want to make sure that you are only including behaviors from the time frame of the review dates as listed. 
6. Be Effective and Supportive – Your language, as well as the information included, should be able to support the growth and development of your team members. This isn’t a chance to merely harp on things you don’t like about a person, this is how you improve your store’s performance and culture overall. Use positive language, and provide quality suggestions and celebrations that will build everyone up in the long run. 

HOW DO I DELIVER A REVIEW?

Preparing for the Review

Remember that an annual review is a lasting thing. Associates take what you say to heart so make sure that you come into the review prepared and give them a quality assessment that they can use to improve their performance and celebrate their wins. 

Before the review be sure to do the following things:

1. Review the job description – Look over the job description you gave your employee and think of a specific example of how they met each objective on the description. Take notes so that you can call out these experiences when you meet.
2. Evaluate strengths and opportunities – Make a list for each associate of what they have done really well and the areas that you think they could use improvement in. For each thing try to think of an example you can use from their work experience that showcases why you feel this way. Remember to highlight things that employees did that may have been above and beyond their job expectations.
3. Self-assessment – If you are planning to have your employees do a self-assessment for their review, have them fill these out prior to writing the review so that you can use that in conjunction with your own notes when making your rounded assessment of the situation 
4. Manager Notes – If you are doing the reviews as an owner and you have a manager on your staff as well, you should confer with them on what their thoughts are based on what they see. Be sure to check employee files for any write-ups, coaching notes, touch base information, etc to see if there has been any progress on previous conversations that you can highlight
5. Write the review – Use all of your notes and write your review. Be thorough in your examples and descriptions so that you associate is able to understand and follow up on anything they need to. 

Delivering the Review

1. Find a quiet, comfortable place to hold reviews – Don’t hold reviews on the sales floor! This is a private conversation between you and the associate you are reviewing. Give them a blocked off amount of time in a quiet, comfortable place so that they don’t feel like others are a part of the conversation. Reviews already make a lot of people feel like they are being judged, you want your associates to know this is not the case. You are having a conversation that is about celebrating wins and developing the store at large, this includes them on an individual level. 
2. Start with laying expectations – Let your employee know what you are going to be discussing (job description, their self evaluation, performance metrics, etc.). Make sure they know what to expect from the conversation right away so that they are in the right headspace for the information being delivered. 
3. Review the job description – Much like you did before you wrote their review, go over what the agreed upon expectations were when they accepted the job. Ask them how they feel they met those expectations, use the self-assessment (if they did one) to further that conversation. 
4. Review the performance metrics – Whether this is sales numbers or behavior based metrics, review each item listed on your assessment in detail showcasing the examples that you listed down 
5. Highlight learning opportunities – The point of the review is to grow your associate and your store as a whole, and in order to do that you need to provide the necessary educational pieces. When discussing the opportunity areas with your associate, point out the behavior and ask them what they see in it? 

E.G. “You seem to have less knowledge of the current books on the shelf, why do you feel that is?” 

Asking questions may give them the chance to discover a break in their training or daily routine they haven’t seen before. 

You can also try a direct approach of saying something like, 

“I’ve noticed you aren’t spending as much time on product knowledge recently, I’d like to challenge you to read one new book a week and make a staff rec card to highlight what you read.” 

6. End on a positive note – You want your employee to be happy about their experience working with you. Happy employees perform better. Talk about how their work supports your goals as a company or a major win they had this year. Give them something to feel good about. 
7. Follow up – Plan for any follow up that you will be doing with them in the moment so that everyone is on the same page of when that will happen

WHAT DOES FOLLOW UP LOOK LIKE?

Follow up for a review isn’t always necessary. If someone met or exceeded expectations in every category, you aren’t going to schedule a follow up review to see if they are still doing great…though you should keep an eye on them as much as anyone to see that they maintain performance. However, if someone has some opportunity areas that you discuss during a review you will want to make sure that you have scheduled follow ups. What does that look like?

Additional Training

If someone is struggling it could be that they need additional training. Maybe they never got a concept or perhaps they’ve developed a bad habit and need to break it. 

When giving your associate their review, give them a training plan that can help them recover from this, don’t leave them to figure it out on their own. Perhaps they need to revisit a training module, or maybe there is someone who exceeded expectations in the same area that you can pair them up with to learn from. Give your associate the tools and the expectations for how you would like to see them fix the behaviors. 

If you have a certain amount of email sign ups you expect your associate to get a week and you’ve noticed they don’t ask anymore – find out why during your review and make a plan for what they can do to repair that behavior. Outline the plan in detail so that they know exactly what is expected of them during this time period.

30 Day Follow Up

If there were action items on a review you need to schedule a follow up. The best plan is to complete a follow up 30 day review. As we mentioned earlier, six weeks is the time period it takes to create a habit, so catching your employee at the 30 day mark will give you time to see if the behaviors are changing. 

Much like with the regular review, host your follow up in a quiet, comfortable place. Review the expectations and then discuss what behaviors you see and what they have accomplished. 

If the behaviors are improving, great let them know that you will continue to work with them and watch them but no further action is necessarily needed. 

If the behaviors are not improving, decide if there is something missing in your training with them or if they simply do not wish to correct the behaviors. You can continue to expand on their development program or determine if maybe they are not in the right role and take action from there. 

WHAT IF I NEED TO TAKE ACTION BEFORE A REVIEW?

Sometimes big things happen that need to be addressed right away. You’ve tried coaching in the moment, but behaviors aren’t changing. Maybe the associate just blatantly does not want to work within the mission of the store. You don’t have to wait for a review to have a sit down conversation with someone. And while no one wants to be led by fear and the idea that counseling and write-ups exist, you do need to know what to do if that situation arises. 

Touch Bases 

When coaching in the moment doesn’t seem to be getting through, but you know the associate is trying their best, try having a sit down with them. 

Maybe they are consistently late to work and you’ve had a couple of quick floor chats with them about how it impedes on everyone’s work day when they are late, but you find them still showing up late for the next shift. Have a one-on-one with them in the backroom where you have a chance to go more in-depth about what the underlying issue is. Are they unhappy with their job? Do they have a school schedule that is overwhelming them and causing them to come late but they don’t want to risk losing the job by saying they can’t make their scheduled shift at the exact time? 

Giving them a chance to dive deeper into the issue with you and seeing if you can fix it is a great way to show your employee that you do care but that you are also working to ensure that the entire store is working at full capacity. 

Write Ups and Counseling

No one wants to be the bad guy, but sometimes there will be situations where you have to. An associate is repeatedly rude to customers or insubordinate. Behaviors continuously don’t change and product is getting damaged or missed because of it. A myriad of things can happen. 

In these situations the tough conversations have to be had and a write-up must be documented. Creating a written document that your employee signs that shows that you had the conversation, they agreed to change the behaviors, and what actions could be taken in the future if they do not is not only important to have so that you can call back to it for the associate if the behaviors do not improve, but could be legally required for you to terminate the employee in the future. Check your state laws for termination requirements to ensure that you are following them to the letter. 

PRACTICE & EXERCISE

Instructions: Using the information learned, think about how you can implement or improve upon reviews in your store to help continue the development of staff members and store overall. With that information in mind, complete the following exercises. 

Exercise 1

Instructions: Review the following statements. How could you improve them to provide a better performance evaluation for your team members? Remember to consider that your assessment should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. 

Statements:

1. You’re unable to meet deadlines and you are always late. 
2. You do a good job. 
3. You are careless in your performance causing you to make mistakes. 
4. I was really annoyed with how you handled that customer situation. 

Exercise 2

Description: Create a list of definable metrics for your store. What tasks/behaviors would you like to see staff members demonstrate? Using that list, create a template for future reviews.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What are the job requirements for each position?
2. What should customer service look like in the store?
3. Are there certain daily/weekly tasks that associates are required to complete?
4. What should communication between team members look like?
5. How important is attendance/punctuality for team members to be successful in their role?

CONCLUSION

While reviews and assessments are not necessarily required in every state, they are a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of how your team is doing and more importantly, how they are feeling. Completing annual reviews helps you to see where new or repeated training might come in handy on an individual or store-level basis. Consider this your State of the Union moment, and it’s up to you to talk to each of your team members to figure out what you need to focus on in the coming year to ensure that you are all successful together. 

For more information on in the moment evaluations, check out our guide to Coaching and Counseling. 

Team Member Name: ___________________________________       Team Member Role:______________________________

Date of Counseling: __________________________________

Supervisor’s Name:  __________________________________         Date of Incident:  _________________________________

Signature of Employee: _______________________________________________________________________________

Signature of Supervisor Administering Counseling: ________________________________________________

Team Member Name: ___________________________________       Team Member Role:______________________________

Date of Counseling: __________________________________

Supervisor’s Name:  ______________________________    Date of Expected Improvement: _________________________

Signature of Employee: _______________________________________________________________________________

Signature of Supervisor Administering Counseling: ________________________________________________

A TRAINING MANUAL PROVIDED BY

WHAT IS COACHING?

Think of your staff as a team. 

When a coach works with their team they don’t just tell them their position and then send them out onto the field. A coach organizes practice sessions, encourages the players, gives them their playbook so they can strategize, watches tape of their performances with them so that they can see where they could have veered left instead of right.

 A coach is just as active a member of the team as any player. While they may be standing on their sidelines, their role is to observe and react. To see how the other team, in this case our customers, responds to the plays used and provide the team with the tools needed to find the way through to them. 

A coach provides feedback in the moment so that future opportunities are not lost. And then follows up in more detail later during a practice session to ensure that the lesson of the moment isn’t lost. 

THIS is your role. 

You are the coach of your team. You find the right people and the right positions for them. You train them in your playbook, the knowledge they need to be successful in that role. And then you practice getting ready for the game, where you then observe, recognize, and report on what you see so that you can enhance your player’s abilities and possibilities. 

Coaching is finding the opportunities in your player’s game, and leading them towards the most effective outcome for them and the team as a whole.

Coaching in the Moment 

Why is timely feedback the most effective?

The easiest reason for why timely feedback is effective is in the name…it’s timely! When something is fresh in your mind it is easy to recall details of the experience, and this is necessary when we are training employees. Not only is it fresh for them, but it is fresh for you so you can specifically point to their exact interaction or action without having to use a generic example. 

Plus, if feedback is delivered in the moment, an employee has a chance to modify and practice new behaviors before they learn a bad habit. They say it takes a month to two months to break a bad habit, and another 18 days to develop a new one. Don’t let bad behaviors develop into routines, fix issues in the moment. 

That said, in the moment does not mean, in front of the customer. Always take an employee aside for coaching conversations. Keep your frontline solid in front of customers.

What does this look like:  

This coaching opportunity directly addresses the exact behavior the employee demonstrated, offers an alternative way to say what they said, and provides a natural segue to selling an item to the customer…which is what a sales associate should be doing! This is what good coaching should look like! 

HOW TO GIVE AND RECEIVE FEEDBACK

As managers we have a tendency to think that our management style can be one-size fits all. After all, we’re the boss, right? But the truth of the matter is that a rigid manager can cause their team to fall apart. 

When first working with an employee, it is helpful to find out how they like to receive their feedback. Of course, no one really LIKES feedback, but as it is our responsibility to coach our team members, we need to know how to best approach them with that information. In the corporate world, they really love to use personality tests to try to squeeze everyone into a box of different behaviors and emotions, but we can do that in a more natural way just by having conversations with our staff members one on one to find the right balance for them.

 If an employee says they learn through comparative behavior, consider finding examples of how someone else on staff handled a situation that was successful. If someone finds themselves pulled down by that type of feedback, maybe don’t point out that they could be better if they emulate someone else’s style. 

Some employees may learn through experimentation and doing, oftentimes this is well met with a couple of rounds of role-playing potential situations to allow them to see how things might play out based on their and the customers behaviors. 

Others still may prefer to see information in writing, learning through text. For these employees, you may want to have copies of training materials available so that they can refresh themselves on what information is best suited for the conversation. 

Generational differences also play a big role in how employees receive their feedback or their level of understanding of different things. For example, it may take a person over the age of 55 longer to understand how to use the computer system to order a comic. You may need to start at the very beginning steps of logging on and be prepared to slowly move through each step of the process. On the flip side, a Gen Z teen will probably find your process tedious if you take too long and may get frustrated feeling like you are speaking down to them, so understanding a person’s learning style, comprehension style, and communication style all become key factors in providing communication to your team. 

Giving Feedback

When it comes to the act of actually administering feedback, it can get a little nerve wracking. You don’t want to come off as overbearing or unsupportive, but you want to make sure that your team member knows that the behaviors they are distributing aren’t necessarily the best way to go about assisting customers. 

So how do you give them feedback that is both helpful and encouraging? 

A good place to start is with these five basic steps to giving feedback:

1. Ensure that the recipient is ready: When preparing to deliver feedback, it’s helpful to verify that the person is ready for the feedback session. Asking a person, “may I give you some feedback on that transaction,” is a great way to open them up to the fact that you are about to coach them on the situation. Mr. Rogers used to ask his team if he could “elevate their ideas,” which set the stage for the fact that he was going to provide a way to take what they were doing and make it better fit what the expectations were. 
2. Clearly describe the situation: When giving feedback it is important to provide as many details to the event as possible. This not only helps the associate see that you have a full grasp of the situation, but it also may help them see something they missed when they were going through the motions. This is another reason why coaching in the moment is so important. Details remain fresh to both you and the team member, making the conversation more relevant and easier to dissect. 
3. Present your take: Remember when presenting your take to use “I” statements. “I noticed this behavior,” or “I feel like trying this might.” Using I statements helps keep employees from defending their behaviors, while giving you the chance to explain what you saw from the outside and why you feel that something else may be a more beneficial behavior. 
4. Give actionable recommendations: Simply telling a team member that they did something that doesn’t work does not help to improve their future behaviors. It’s important when giving feedback to make sure that you give your employee a behavior or series of behaviors that they can try in the future to see greater success. 
5. Talk with people, not at them: Nothing shuts someone down like feeling like their opinion isn’t valued. Let your employee participate in the conversation. You may come up with an even better way to meet your goals as a team when you talk through it together.

The Importance of Positive Feedback

Many times we become too focused on pointing out behaviors that we would like to see team members change, and we forget to recognize the good, and oftentimes, great behaviors that our associates demonstrate. 

Celebrating wins, or positive feedback, is a great way to recognize when someone does something well. Positive feedback can help employees feel more motivated to do their job, but it can also help them and others learn and grow from the simple act of calling out that something is a behavior that helps the store, the team, or the customers. 

Tips for giving positive feedback:

• Be specific: Focus on the action or behavior that you want to recognize. This can be handled as simply as saying, “You did a great job explaining that book to that customer.” 
• Be genuine: Make sure your associate knows that you are sincere in your support of their behavior. 
• Be timely: As with any coaching situation you want to make sure that positive feedback is also given as soon as possible so that your team member can remember the behavior and knows that you are paying attention to the work they are doing. 
• Use the what and why method: Explain to them what impressed you about what they did and why you found it so effective in the moment. 
• Recognize the person: People want to know that you care about them as an individual on your team, make sure to tailor your feedback to them specifically, and remind them of their personal strengths when you highlight their performance. 

Providing positive feedback helps your team members feel more receptive to feedback while also reinforcing the behaviors and skills  you want to see continue. 

Receiving Feedback 

You are also going to need to receive feedback from your team members at times. We all make mistakes and we all have room to learn and grow, how you handle your team members responding to your feedback and providing their own to you speaks volumes to what kind of leader you are and want to be. It is important to learn to listen not for response but for reception. To see the value in the alternative perspective to what you are doing or providing. And to be prepared to adapt when necessary, just as much as you expect them to.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN ACTION

How do we demonstrate accountability while also building the same expectations in employees?

The word accountability has three major word associations: responsible, answerable, explainable.

It’s important to keep these words in mind when teaching accountability to your team members:

1. Responsible – who is responsible for ensuring certain actions get done. How can you take responsibility for action items? How do you take responsibility for your actions? Own it and take it!

2. Answerable – What answers can you provide for the situation? What solutions are available? 

3. Explainable -Do you understand the reality of the situation? Explain the needed behaviors to rectify the situation and improve the behaviors in the future. 

When we can learn that all behaviors impact the situation and that we must own our behaviors and actions we can improve our functionality. 

The sooner that we acknowledge our role in situations, the sooner we can find an actual solution. Solution-making and implementation should always be the goal so work to move past denial and blaming and work towards getting things done. 

 Accountability Ladder:

The Accountability Ladder is a helpful tool when discussing accountability with team members. This guide can work to explain the difference in taking ownership of a situation versus creating excuses that do not actualize solutions for our customers or team. 

How can you help associates move from stages like denial or excuses to making it happen?

Leadership at all Level 

Be willing to learn from any team member – No one can know everything! But all together we can get really close!

Be open to learning from anyone on your team. When Macys was going under it was the employees that came up with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and saved the company…not to mention made a tradition that survived for generations. 

Don’t be afraid to listen to your employees when they have ideas, even if it’s something you’ve always seen as a tried and true method they are questioning. They may find the hole you’ve been needing to patch! 

WHAT IS COUNSELING?

Counseling is the escalated steps you take when the team member does not respond to coaching. While coaching is something that you do in the moment or right after the moment to give the employee the chance to adapt and move in a different direction, counseling is a more serious conversation.

Counseling generally occurs when an employee continuously misses opportunities, when an employee struggles with attendance or attitude towards the job, etc. 

Counseling can often feel like the dreaded call to the principal’s office, giving it a negative connotation, but doesn’t have to be a negative experience. This is simply another way to help get your employee back on track.

As a more formal version of coaching, counseling usually consists of a written action plan that will let the employee see that you are aware of the situation, that you are documenting the conversation, and that you expect to see some sort of outcome from the planning session that the two of you are having. This is also something that for human resource purposes can be considered trackable. 

What does this look like:  

This counseling opportunity highlights specific times when the situation at hand has been previously addressed with the employee, giving them ample time to correct the behavior. This more formal conversation allows the manager to document that an official conversation has been had and that changes to behavior and follow-up expectations are expected to be met. It also shows that there are repercussions in line if the employee fails to improve upon such behaviors.

Oftentimes counseling sessions are like miniature reviews documenting an employee’s opportunities and the steps you expect them to make to improve upon those. Counseling sessions should include a scheduled follow up to discuss the performance changes (or lack thereof), and should include the employee’s acknowledgement of the expectations and timeframes. 

 Sample Employee Counseling Form:

Depending on your state laws, you may be required to keep an official record of any counseling sessions, write-ups, or reviews that you administer. It’s important to verify that you have all appropriate paperwork in order when it comes to employee training and development. 

Below is a sample counseling form that can be used in case documentation is required or preferred. 

EMPLOYEE COUNSELING FORM TEMPLATE: 

Team Member Name: ___________________________________       Team Member Role:______________________________

Date of Counseling: __________________________________

Supervisor’s Name:  __________________________________         Date of Incident:  _________________________________

Signature of Employee: _______________________________________________________________________________

Signature of Supervisor Administering Counseling: ________________________________________________

Creating an Action Plan

Once you’ve had the conversation with your team member about the behaviors that you have seen and the corrective actions you would like to see them take to turn their progress around, it is important to give them a clear action plan. 

This can be as simple as writing on our Counseling Form the details of the expected actions and the timeframe they should be completed within. Or, for more serious problems, you can create a full action plan for your employees to follow to help them along the way. 

Remember to make sure that goals are clear for both the employee and the supervisor’s role in the actions to be taken. 

It is also helpful to ask the employee to explain back what the expectations are so that you can ensure that they fully understand what is required of them. This will make sure that there is no confusion in any follow ups on where an employee should be at the time of future conversations. 

Below is a Sample Employee Action Form:

EMPLOYEE ACTION FORM TEMPLATE: 

Team Member Name: ___________________________________       Team Member Role:______________________________

Date of Counseling: __________________________________

Supervisor’s Name:  ______________________________    Date of Expected Improvement: _________________________

Signature of Employee: _______________________________________________________________________________

Signature of Supervisor Administering Counseling: _______________________________________________

FOLLOWING UP

After you have held a coaching or counseling session, it’s important to continue the conversation in the future. You want your employees to see that you aren’t just showing up and barking orders, but are actively participating in their growth and development. You also want them to understand when a counseling session or warning is given out that you will be monitoring the behavior to see if they improve in the expected timeframes. 

Some tips for following up, include:

• Be timely and consistent: If you tell your employee that you will follow up with them in a week, do so. As mentioned earlier, it takes time to develop a habit, it also takes accountability. Make sure that you provide that for your employees so that they can develop needed or preferred behaviors as expected. Being consistent shows that you are as committed to their success as you expect them to be. 
• Be transparent: When addressing the progress you see from a team member, it is important that you are clearly and openly communicating what progress or challenges you are seeing in them. If you need to make an adjustment to the plan to help them stay on track, ensure that they fully understand what is being changed and what is expected of them. Feedback isn’t supposed to be a trick, but a tool. Make sure they have the same access to the toolbox that you do. 
• Celebrate successes: As they move through the process, take some time to point out when you see them demonstrate behaviors that reflect the changes you are seeking. This will motivate them by showing you see the good work they are doing. 
• Define final parameters: If an employee has successfully changed the behavior or accomplished missed tasks, let them know that they have done so. Using counseling of behaviors as a fear tactic, discourages employees from feeling like they are valued or part of the team. Take the time to have a follow up session at the end of the period and let employees know that they have accomplished the goal and that you hope it continues moving forward.
• Ask for feedback: It’s always important to end your sessions with follow up from your team as well. Is there something else you could be doing to support them? Is there a way to make sure this requirement is better communicated to future team members? Is there something missing in the training? Including your employees in the conversation for further improvement shows that you value leadership at all levels and want to see the team as a whole succeed.

PRACTICE & EXERCISE

Instructions: Read the following behavioral situations and answer the questions based on how you would provide feedback to the employee in the scenario. Your responses should demonstrate your ability to listen and understand the situation, present and reiterate expectations through either coaching or counseling, and follow-up with your employee. 

Scenario 1

Description: An employee is assisting a customer looking for a certain book which you do not have in stock. You witness the following conversation, before the customer leaves the store empty handed.

Customer: “I heard James Gunn said that you should read All-Star Superman in preparation for the new movie, do you have that in stock? I really want to read it.”

Employee: “Oh, yeah, you and everyone else. We’re totally out of stock.”

This is the first time you have seen the employee demonstrate this kind of behavior.

Questions:

1. List two possible alternative behaviors you would like to see the employee demonstrate next time.
2. How would you coach the employee in the moment to exhibit those behaviors in the future?

Scenario 2

Description: You have an employee that is consistently late for work. When they arrive for their shift they almost always take ten minutes in the backroom before they hit the floor, making them even later, causing a disruption in scheduling for others.

This is the third time you have had a conversation with them about this behavior. 

Questions:

1. What actions can you take beyond coaching them on the behavior?
2. How can you explain the behaviors you want to see and outline expectations for the future?

Scenario 3

Description: You have an employee who was on an action plan for the way they handled closing duties. In the past, they have continuously left stacks of go-backs on the counter for the morning person to put away and failed to take out the trash. Over the last few weeks, you have noticed they have become the best at making sure the store is clean and bright. 

You aren’t due to have your official follow up to their action plan for another two weeks. 

Questions:

1. How can you show them that you notice their improved behavior?
2. What actions would you take to ensure that the behavior is maintained going forward?
3. What follow-up questions might you ask to find out what has made the cleaning process easier for them and how you can get the rest of the team to implement it?

Scenario 4

Description: An employee on your team has noticed that when you come in you seem to be stressed and grumpy. They ask you if they can provide you some feedback, at which point they inform you that it seems to them that you have been exhibiting the behavior on the sales floor towards employees and customers alike. 

You have just received feedback from an associate about your behavior that you feel strongly about. 

Questions:

1. How do you approach the fact that your employee is providing you with feedback?
2. What actions can you take to demonstrate that you value their opinion?
3. What are ways that you can take action on your own behaviors to showcase that your team that you understand you are also a member of the team that needs to be held accountable?
4. How do you follow up for the future?

CONCLUSION

Feedback is an extremely valuable tool for all team members to give and receive. It is important that as managers/owners, we are prepared to coach our teams in the moment to ensure everyone is getting an equal and tailored chance to develop. It is also important to ensure that when we evaluate behaviors that we are focusing on specific moments, actions, and skills with a positive, growth-centric mindset at the base of all we do. 

Expected behaviors and requirements should be outlined in Job Descriptions and Employee Handbooks. For more information on how to do that, see our guides on Creating Job Descriptions and Expectations and Employee Handbooks. 

What is “The Product Strategy” of Handselling?

The Product Strategy of handselling is a sales technique built from the salesperson’s knowledge of their product. The Product Strategy is straight-to-the-point and easier to use with customers who are in a hurry or may, initially, seem uninterested in talking (in other words, may not be as open to the Social Strategy of Handselling).

Important Forms of Product Knowledge

Getting to know your product, especially in an expansive field like comics, is a long-term project–and you’ll never know everything. Here are some major “categories” of product you should familiarize yourself with:

Where Do I Get This Information? 

There is simply no way you will be able to read every single book that comes into your store. That’s why it’s important to know where you can find information about books, even if you haven’t read them yet. Here are some sources you should turn to:

• Your Fellow Staff. Read any “staff recommendation” cards or posts folks make. If you have more questions, talk with them! Telling a customer, “[Insert name here] has been raving about this book!” still feels like an honest,  genuine recommendation.
• Solicits. Flip through Previews, other preview catalogs, and marketing emails. These marketing materials will generally provide brief plot synopsis and comp titles (see below).
• Customers. You can turn a conversation with a customer into a covert fact-finding mission. If someone brings up a book they like, ask what they are enjoying about the book. 
• Reviews & Discussion. Do you have a favorite reviewer on Tiktok or Youtube? Or do you read a newsletter or a blog that recommends and reviews comics? These kinds of resources can be helpful for expanding your knowledge about books you haven’t been exposed to yet.

Comp Titles

Marketing material for new books will often advertise a new book by including multimedia comp titles (comparative titles) like: “This book is like X-Men met  Breakfast Club!” One of the most common ways you will use product knowledge to handsell books is by taking advantage of comp titles like these. Comp titles are especially useful when a customer wants to read something new, but isn’t sure what to read yet.  They are also useful when you don’t have the exact book a customer is looking for but think they might like another similar book.

Here are some important things to consider when suggesting comp titles for a customer:

• Never be afraid to ask about other media, especially if a customer is new to comics. If a customer can’t think of a comic they like, ask them about their favorite movies, TV, video games, novels, etc.
• Who is the author or artist of the work a customer mentions? Is there other work available by those creators, or frequent collaborators of those creators?
  • For example, a customer may say they are big fans of Doctor Who. You could let them know that Paul Cornell and Neil Gaiman wrote for Doctor Who and also have written their own comics. Jody Houser and Dan Slott haven’t written for the TV show, but have written many Doctor Who comics, as well as a whole lot more!
• What does the customer like about the work they mention? Is it the visual style, the writing style, the genre, or the theme? What don’t they like? 
  • For example, a customer says their favorite TV show is Bones. They might like murder mysteries like The Good Asian. They might care more about the found family aspect, and prefer something like Runaways. Or, they could be interested in stories about autistic characters, and therefore might enjoy a memoir like Invisible Differences. The only way to find out what a customer really wants is to ask!