Manager Essentials
7
min read
If you are a people manager, you would definitely be spending a lot of time in identifying tools and practices to boost employee engagement. However, you must have overlooked the importance of constructive employee feedback to facilitate the same. If that is the case, you need to pause and revisit the importance of employee feedback for employee experience. Put simply, employee feedback involves having a constructive discussion with your employees and team members about what is working and what is not.
Statistically speaking, employee feedback has a direct impact on engagement and performance. Research shows 43% of highly-engaged employees receive employee feedback at least once a week. Additionally, 75% of employees prefer their feedback as early as possible. A culture of employee feedback opens up the gates for two-way communication, leading to greater understanding, synergies and collaboration.
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Understanding the employment feedback lifecycle
More often than not, you might see employee feedback as a unidirectional process. It is understood as a process where a manager evaluates employee performance and offers feedback on the same with a way forward for improvement. However, if you closely look at the employee feedback lifecycle, you will come across three major components, each of which has its own value.
1. Performance evaluation
The employee feedback lifecycle begins with evaluating the performance of an individual as well as the team as a whole. Performance evaluation can be undertaken using several practices like measuring key performance indicators, achieving targets, etc. Following a few parameters, you can evaluate how well the employee has been able to perform as well as identify areas of improvement. You must encourage a self-reflection exercise as well to understand the evaluation of performance by employees themselves.
2. Giving feedback to employees
Next step in the employee feedback lifecycle is giving feedback to the employees based on highlights of performance evaluation. The objective is to offer constructive feedback on what worked and what didn’t work. Simply, saying your performance could have been better will not suffice. You must encourage your managers to spend adequate time on offering feedback to each employee highlighting their strengths as well as areas to work on. Additionally, managers should explore offering employees with the resources, guidance or direction on how they can work on the areas mentioned. Feedback is not only about identifying areas of improvement, but also identifying ways and means to improve based on experience of the managers.
3. Receiving feedback from employees
Most managers believe that the employee feedback lifecycle ends at the above-mentioned second step. However, this third step which revolves around seeking feedback from employees is equally important. This involves empowering and encouraging employees to share their side of the story. This should not only be limited to their performance and what worked for them and what did not. Rather, it should entail constructive feedback for the manager as well as the team as a whole. You should give each employee an opportunity to voice what they perceived worked and what are the areas of improvement on an organizational, manager, team and individual level. This particular step holds great importance when it comes to engaging employees and making them feel valued.
Importance of employee feedback to manager and back
Now that you understand the various components of employee feedback, let’s understand why employee feedback to managers matters and vice versa.
Need for employment feedback to managers
There are several reasons why you should focus on creating a culture of sharing employee feedback to managers, including:
1. Gauge employee pulse
Get an understanding of what the employees feels and perceives about the organization and the manager and address any challenges.
2. Create an open culture
Ensure that employees feel free to share their views and perspectives and organizational hierarchy doesn’t stand in the way of open communication.
3. Facilitate accountability
Promote a culture where everyone is accountable for their actions and to everyone in the team, irrespective of the position.
4. Increase in engagement and value
Facilitate greater engagement as employees feel valued when their opinions and feedback is being taken seriously
Thus, with employee feedback to managers you can ascertain that employees feel more connected to the organization with an increased sense of belongingness.
Need for manager feedback to employees
Similarly, there are multiple benefits you can reap by creating a culture of feedback with managers providing the same to their team members, such as:
1. Clarify expectations and path ahead
Help employees understand where they are going wrong and gives them the chance to perform better.
2. Facilitate individual and organizational health
Allow employees to play on their strengths and work on their weaknesses to boost their performance and bring in greater productivity.
3. Decreased attrition
A study by Gallup showed that turnover rates are 14.9% lower in employees who receive feedback than those who don’t.
4. Opens up conversations and communication
Promote great relationship building that enables managers to understand employee personality and ensure effective mentoring and guidance.
Therefore, constructive feedback from managers to employees can enable you to facilitate greater productivity, engagement, relationship building and retention, promoting organizational growth and success.
Types of employment feedback
At the first glance it seems that there are just two types of employee feedback, positive or negative. However, if you look closely, it becomes clear that there are several types of employee feedback based on the nature, scope, frequency, etc. While the list can go on, we will talk about the key employee feedback types that most fast growing organizations have adopted:
1. 360* Feedback
This is an all-encompassing form of employee feedback from across all stakeholders on all parameters. For a 360* feedback, you should focus on capturing performance evaluation for a particular employee across all aspects to get a comprehensive view. This involves getting feedback from different team members, other managers, and a few key stakeholders in the organization. The idea is to get feedback from superiors, juniors as well as peers to identify strengths and weaknesses and lead the way for improvement.
2. Continuous vs Annual Feedback
Amongst the various types of employee feedback, one factor lies in the frequency of the feedback.
Conventionally, you might have relied on an annual feedback mechanism. In such a case, employees are given feedback and the chance to share their feedback too once a year based on the annual performance. While this form of feedback may be less time consuming for you, it deters incremental growth and implementation of corrective measures in an agile manner.
It is time that you start your journey towards continuous feedback mechanisms where employees receive and offer feedback on a regular basis. There is no need to wait for the year to end for managers and employees to share their opinions, reviews and feedback and identify areas and ways of improvement.
3. Reinforcing vs Redirecting Feedback
Finally, in the types of employee feedback, our last focus is on the objective or the nature of feedback. For most people this resembles positive or negative feedback. However, it takes the whole idea a step further to make it more constructive and result oriented.
Reinforcing feedback is on a positive note where the aim is to encourage the employee to continue what he or she has been doing. This generally comes after a performance evaluation which has shown positive results indicating that things are going well. In a way, it aims at reinforcing the actions being undertaken.
Redirecting feedback, on the other hand, comes to the picture if you want to offer negative feedback. However, simply stating that this is not working out is self-defeating. Therefore, with redirecting feedback, you must highlight the challenges in the current state of work as well as identify and share corrective measures.
Top 15 employee feedback questions
To make employee feedback effective, you must focus on asking the right questions. The below mentioned questions are primarily from an employee’s point of view to capture their feedback on their performance, as well as on different managerial and organizational factors.
1. Personal reflection
- How would you rate your performance during the last year?
- What are the major responsibilities that you take care of?
- What have been the top 3 achievements for you in the past year?
- What are the skills you have acquired in the year gone by?
- What do you want to change/improve about yourself as well as the work you do?
2. Leadership satisfaction
- Would you agree that your manager has contributed to your personal or professional growth in the last year? If yes, how?
- If you were leading the project, what would you do differently?
- Do you feel confident and comfortable enough to voice your opinion with your manager?
- Do you feel comfortable sharing feedback about your manager?
- How would you rate the leadership in terms of offering support that you seek?
3. Organizational focus
- What are some processes that you think can be improved?
- If you were running the organization, what is the one thing you would do differently?
- How often do you receive/offer feedback to individuals beyond your team?
- What could the organization do to create a better experience for you?
- How would you rate your level of satisfaction from the organization?
Employment feedback: Best Practices
With a firm understanding of the importance, types, questions, etc. of employee feedback, it’s now time to explore the best practices. We will cover the best practices to offer employee feedback, followed by a few examples for greater clarity. Next, we will highlight the best practices on how to gather and leverage feedback from employees.
How to give feedback to employees
Let’s start with how you and your managers should give feedback to your team members to ensure it is effective and meaningful.
1. Be straightforward
Don’t beat around the bush. Directly come to the point on what worked and what are the areas of improvement. While it is important to set the context, don’t waste time in random conversations.
2. Be specific
Keep the feedback to the point and be constructive with examples. When you are mentioning what didn’t work, offer a course that might have been better and how one can improve. Be very clear in what your expectations are.
3. Be open to conversation
Offer feedback with an open mindset to hear their side of the story. Actively listen to what the employee has to say and then respond accordingly. Don’t simply stick to the feedback you have prepared. Customize the conversations according to the situation.
4. Be regular
Offering feedback once a year is not enough. Offer feedback regularly and follow up on the actions suggested. Take a review of the feedback offered before and gauge the improvements before providing the next feedback.
Employee feedback examples
Here are a few statements that you can use to start your feedback sessions which ensure effectiveness:
- I believe you are really good at ‘xyz’ and you can further hone your skills with ‘abc’
- I think your performance during <particular incident> was remarkable, keep it up
- I believe your strength lies in <particular task> and you should focus on the same more
- Your performance on <area of strength> was good, however, you may want to focus more on <area of weakness>. I would suggest <some corrective measures>
- I believe that you are struggling with <area of weakness>, you should consider <improvement tips> to step up your game
- I think a little more focus on <area of weakness> can help you take your performance and growth to the next level
How to gather employment feedback
In the next leg, let’s focus on how you can effectively gather feedback from employees to facilitate an open culture.
1. Surveys
You can float regular surveys to gauge employee sentiment. From pulse to annual, you can explore different ways and questions to understand what employees feel.
2. Suggestion box
Create an anonymous suggestion box for employees to share what they feel can be improved and what they appreciate.
3. 1-o-1 sessions
Encourage closed room conversations with employees to understand their specific challenges and grievances.
How to benefit from employee feedback
In the last section of the best practices, let’s quickly explore how you can benefit from the feedback gathered from employees.
1. Actively listen
Ensure that you really listen to the employee feedback and don’t take it as a mere tick in the box. Try to understand the concern and make mental or physical notes.
2. Don’t react instantly
Don’t get defensive on the feedback instantly and don’t take offence if something negative is shared. Take it in the spirit of growth and action on the challenges.
3. Ask questions
Try to get to the route of the problem. Ask follow-up questions to truly understand what the feedback means and how the employee proposes to address the same.
4. Share the next steps
Create a list of action items and share with the employees on how you seek to implement the feedback. Once implemented, share the progress made at regular intervals.
Take employment feedback to the next level with SuperBeings
By now it is evident that employee feedback is a critical part of creating an empowering and positive employee experience. To facilitate the same, you must start by gauging employee pulse to understand their sentiment. Learn how SuperBeings can help you gauge employee feedback in the most effective manner with pulse surveys. Furthermore, SuperBeings can empower you with actionable insights to predict employee turnover, address the reasons for low productivity, calculate the cost of turnover and boost engagement.
Suggested reading:
The Ultimate Guide to Building Organizational Culture
Continuous Feedback in the Workplace
Take your employee experience to new heights with our customizable employee engagement module. Book a free demo today!
