There are many books and articles on how to deliver constructive praise and suggestions for improvement. This is hard and we are not covering that here :) Use your own judgement & leverage your training when deciding the manner in which feedback is given.
That being said below are some suggestions:
- Schedule a 45 minute meeting specifically for this review, do not re-use a 1:1.
- Do your best to keep the feedback anonymous, although sometimes this is impossible.
- Tailor how you deliver feedback to your relationship with the employee and their personality. Some folks are OK with hearing praise and suggestions for improvement, some folks aren't.
- If there are concrete next steps.. discuss them individually.
- Make sure to cover the themes that developed, spend enough time on the positive feedback to ensure that when focusing on the items that are hard or uncomfortable, they are taken in context.
As soon as is reasonable provide a written summary of your discussion with your employee. This is an important document and should summarize what you discussed and any concrete next steps or follow-ups.