What is employee feedback?
As an employer, you may be wondering how exactly we can define employee feedback and why it matters so much.
The term employee feedback refers to any information that is exchanged between the organisation and the employee with regard to their performance, their team-working ability, or their skills in general. It can be used to praise staff for things done well, but it can also serve to address certain shortcomings or undesirable behaviours.
Organisations with a sound feedback process have the potential to become stronger and more harmonious overall.
Related: How to Conduct a Performance Appraisal – A Guide for Employers
Why is positive feedback important?
Although negative feedback sometimes can’t be helped, it pays to focus on providing your staff with positive feedback wherever possible. Receiving positive feedback can encourage employees to continue doing what they’re doing well, thus reinforcing positive behaviour. This will make your team more efficient and reduce conflict in the long term.
Constructive feedback is, in fact, instrumental for employee development. Your staff need to know what they are doing well and what might need improvement, or else they won’t be able to grow and work on themselves. Positive feedback can boost people’s confidence and help them learn from their mistakes.
What’s more, when expectations are clearly communicated through employee feedback, your staff will know exactly how, and by when, their duties should be performed. This clarifies expectations and makes sure that everyone in the company is on the same page.
Keep in mind that, when things are going well, it’s often easy to forget to praise your staff. Make it a habit to give them feedback on a regular basis to keep everyone motivated and stop standards from slipping.
Related: How to Manage Employees
7 ways how to give effective feedback
If you agree that providing positive feedback is important, but you’re not sure how to go about it, take a look at these seven tips:
1) Be a good listener
Before you start sharing your feedback, give your employee the chance to let you know if there’s anything that concerns them. They’ll feel appreciated and acknowledged, and you’ll set the stage for a comfortable atmosphere and a more relaxed, honest conversation.
Making it a habit to hear your staff out will also help you keep an ear on the ground and stay in touch with what’s going on at all levels of your organisation.
Do… start by asking your employee for important feedback they may want to share from their perspective.
Don’t… dominate the conversation and make it impossible for the employee to get a word in.
2) Be specific
There is nothing worse than vague feedback. You don’t want your team member to walk away confused as to what exactly you want them to do differently. If they don’t understand what you want, chances are they’re not going to be able to change. So, make sure any feedback you provide is specific and actionable.
Do… provide details of positive behaviour, e.g. ‘It’s fantastic that you’re checking in with the client in a fixed weekly phone call.’
Don’t… say things like ‘you didn’t look after our key client very well’ because this doesn’t give your employee any pointers at all as to what they’re doing poorly.
3) Be realistic
It goes with saying that any expectations you set for your staff should be realistic and attainable. This will ensure that your staff members stay motivated and work towards a shared goal.
Any too outrageous demands will likely lower employee morale and make your staff feel like their work is pointless because they can’t achieve what you’re asking anyway, so why even try?
Do… set realistic targets that are achievable, e.g. ‘let’s focus on selling 10% more of product X in May compared to last May’.
Don’t… ask the employee to meet unspecific or unrealistic goals such as ‘I want your results to at least double this year’.
4) Be understanding
Everyone can make mistakes and no one is infallible. We’re only human after all, and that goes for your employees too. So, if someone makes a mistake, try to understand how and why it happened.
Did the employee have a family emergency and wasn’t fully focused? Are they usually reliable and were just not at the top of their game that one day? Did a software or computer error outside their control create an issue for them?
Be genuinely open-minded and show interest in their personal situation. This will make your staff member feel valued and help you analyse the situation, so you can take appropriate remedial measures.
Do… consider the employee’s performance overall and understand what might have contributed to their uncharacteristic mistake or drop in performance.
Don’t… judge or overly punish a usually reliable staff member for one instant of poor behaviour.
5) Be fair
When something goes wrong, it’s easy to feel annoyed and want to blame the responsible employee. However, try to stay unbiased and not judge when you talk to them. If your staff member feels blamed, they will become defensive and you are less likely to have a productive conversation.
Comparing your staff member with each other is also not a good idea. Recognise that everyone is an individual and will handle similar situations differently. Allow for personal differences and attributes when you assess how they dealt with an issue.
Do… ask them to clarify and explain what happened from their perspective.
Don’t… come across as accusatory and avoid sentences like ‘if you had worked harder, we wouldn’t have lost that customer!’.
6) Be timely
Any feedback should be provided as soon as possible after you’ve made a particular observation or noticed something that needs addressing. Don’t wait three weeks to point out an undesirable behaviour or mistake. In order to be fruitful, feedback should be given on a regular basis. This will create trust, and your staff will know they can rely on your to promptly let them know if they did something well or not so well. Waiting too long can make your employees feel caught out and uncomfortable, as they may have been repeating the same mistake this whole time, simply because they didn’t know about it sooner.
You don’t need to wait until a scheduled appraisal or performance review. A quick check-in to touch base with your staff is all that’s needed in most cases. Making time to offer frequent feedback should be one of your priorities as an employer.
Do… give feedback as soon as feasibly after an interaction or behaviour has been observed.
Don’t… hold on to useful information for weeks if it could already improve employee performance and prevent further mistakes today.
7) Be tactful
Receiving any kind of feedback can be a touchy subject for many people. Try focusing on the action you’re praising or criticising, not on the person. After all, they may have just had a bad day or a lapse of judgement, but are very likely not an outright awful person.
If your staff feel that you’re making this distinction, they’ll be less defensive and open to what you have to say because they won’t feel attacked as a person.
Do… point out factual observations, e.g. ‘I overheard that you raised your voice when speaking to a customer.’
Don’t… attack and overgeneralise, e.g. ‘you’re always rude on the phone’.
Refer back to this list any time, and keep your staff motivated!
Related: Effective One-on-One Meetings for Managers
Whether you’re an executive, HR manager or other supervisor, practice delivering positive feedback on a regular basis, and you will soon reap the results – happier, more productive employees and a supportive working environment that’ll make you a popular employer.
