Lane Powell Shareholder Mike Reilly authored an article in Seattle Business magazine’s July 2015 issue titled “The Cost of Bad Performance Reviews: ‘I’m Getting Sued Because My Evaluations Were Too Nice?’” In the article, Reilly discussed employee performance reviews and how many employers — in order to avoid confrontation — either overrate an employee or fail to give the employee necessary details for performance improvement, which can result in a lawsuit against the employer.
1. Being too “rosy” in a performance review can get you sued.
In one notable case, the manager gave the employee a positive performance review and said the employee was qualified to be promoted to a supervisor position. When denied promotion, the employee sued … and won! With too rosy a review, employees can argue that they were deprived of the knowledge needed to sign up for additional training that could help address skill deficits. An honest review highlighting opportunities for improvement would have alerted the employee to seek those necessary skills and may have avoided a lawsuit.