Do you remember how it felt sitting down at the exam table, palms sweaty, and ready to be grilled by your teacher and examiner? Most people get nervous when they go to an exam, and a lot really do not like it.
Therefore, it is important that an employee development interview never has the feel of an exam. An EDP interview should be a dialogue between manager and employee, where the employee's development and well-being are in focus. And where a professional relationship is created.
It is a conversation that should not focus exclusively on performance, but also on how the manager can help the employee develop – and in effect, also performing at work. You need to find out what it takes for the employee to:
To ensure a pleasant situation where the employee relaxes and wants to open up, it is important to create good physical surroundings.
Here is a checklist you can use to plan EDP interviews with your employees.
Find out where to have the interview. Should it be in your office or in a completely different room?
Book the room or clear the office and make sure that there is nothing that might disturb you.
The physical surroundings for a confidential conversation must be present, so it is important that the door can be shut, and that the office is not shared with anyone else.
It is entirely up to you whether to fill the table with water, tea, coffee, fruit or sweets, but be sure to signal a relaxed vibe where there is room to chat together over a cup of coffee.
If you have had an EDP interview with the employee before, it is a good idea to have a look at the minutes from the last interview. Is there anything you need to follow up on?
Has anything changed since the last time?
The better you and your employee can prepare for the interview, the more you both benefit from it.
Be sure to bring minutes from former interviews, so you can look at them together at the interview.
Be sure to keep minutes of the conversation and to make agreements that you can follow up on during the year.
Also, read our blog article 'Make the EDP interview last all year'.
This makes it much easier to compare the development year by year.
Bring a computer, digital tools, paper or whatever should act as your "secretary" during the meeting. If you use a computer or other digital tools during the interview, there are some things you need to be aware of. Read what it is in our blog post '3 things to be aware of in a digital dialogue'.