What would you do to avoid performance reviews?

According to the New York Post, an untenured Brooklyn high school teacher threw herself down a stairwell in order to avoid being observed in her classroom. She’d already received a poor performance review. Although claiming she fell accidentally, surveillance cameras showed that she actually did a controlled fall and faked her injury. The teacher resigned. She’s been declared ineligible to work in the New York City school system.

That’s a little extreme.

But I guess what surprises me is that we don’t hear more about managers throwing themselves down stairwells to avoid giving reviews. No one likes to give reviews. The good ones are problematic because while it’s easy to tell an employee he’s doing a good job, it can be harder to articulate exactly what he does well. And then there’s the question of, “If I’m doing so well, where’s my increase?”

Bad reviews of course are difficult. You don’t want to dump on the person all at once, yet you need him to improve. It’s especially true if you like the employee; hard to correct for the halo effect.

Here are some tips to make reviews more palatable:

Don’t Wing It

It’s hard to review someone if you don’t have a clear idea of what makes for a successful employee. Before you conduct a review; in fact, before you make a hire, identify the behaviors and the outcomes that will make someone successful in a particular role. Write them down. Refer to them as you prepare for an interview. Let a new hire know what’s expected of her within the first few days of employment. Use these competencies as the basis for performance reviews and coaching conversations.

Don’t Do an Annual Review

Or don’t just do an annual review. A good manager regularly gives clear, specific feedback to her staff. Refer to the job competencies when you comment on performance. Rather than telling someone he did a good job, pick one behavior that helped him succeed— and one you want him to continue developing–and describe what he did that worked. In the same way, when someone doesn’t succeed, pick a behavior that if improved, could make a difference next time.

Practice

Many managers are reluctant to give reviews because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing, offending the employee, or having a lawsuit on their hands. The solution: practice. It may sound simplistic, and maybe a little off-putting, but practicing makes better and easier (not perfect).

Find a colleague and give reviews to each other. Provide each other with honest feedback on delivery, clarity. Ask for tips from your own manager (if he’s good at reviews), from HR, and from someone you know who does it really well.

These three tips will help you from feeling tempted to join that former teacher on the stairwell!

Barbara Kurka is Senior Vice President, Human Resources, Katz Media Group, Inc, This article originally appeared in the New York Enterprise Report.