How to Write Great Company OKRs: A CEO’s Guide

In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about writing, communicating, cascading and implementing company OKRs with some exciting examples.

Garima Shukla
Marketing, SuperBeings
OKRs

7

min read

We have talked about OKRs and their importance for different teams as well as individuals. However, an equally important theme that needs due attention includes company OKRs. For a moment, you might think that different team OKRs together are what will form company OKRs. While this is true, however, you will not get a complete and impactful picture this way. Therefore, you need to specifically focus on company OKRs or high level OKRs which will be overarching for anyone who is a part of your organization.

Setting company OKRs: Why and how

Let’s start by answering one of the first questions you are likely to have, why should you be setting high level/ company OKRs. Well, have you ever felt that a lot was discussed during a business strategy or brainstorming session, but when the final tasks and outcomes came to you, it wasn’t even close to what you discussed? If the answer is yes, it’s mostly because the discussion got left on the whiteboard. Setting company OKRs wisely can help prevent exactly that. Here’s what company OKRs can help you achieve:

  • Ensure that everyone is rowing in the same direction: Without company OKRs, different departments might push diverse agenda in different directions, leading to chaos in the organization
  • Communicate the organizational priorities actively: Ensure that everyone understands what is of priority to the organization at that moment
  • Prevent out of sight out of mind syndrome: Ensure that what is discussed is actioned, implemented and driven to results 

Once you and your team are aligned on the need for company OKRs, it is important to follow an effective process to set them. The following steps/ practices will guide your journey and answer the question of how to set company OKRs:

  • Understand needs and priorities at the organization level, across diverse domains, including, business, finance, marketing, human resources, etc.
  • Create a collaborative group with representation from all teams to ensure no voice gets left behind
  • Develop a guide of sorts to help everyone understand the importance and purpose of company OKRs
  • Substantiate each objective with 2-3 key results as well as initiatives or projects to achieve the same

How to turn business strategy into measurable metrics with company OKRs?

Your business strategy is generally an overarching statement or goal that you aspire to reach. However, by its nature, business strategy talks about the actions and steps you need to take to reach that goal, but seldom talks about associated metrics which will signify whether or not you have been able to achieve the goal. Company OKRs can help bridge this gap. This can be used as a tool to translate your business strategy into measurable metrics that can help create clarity for results. 

For instance, as a part of increasing customer lifetime value, your business strategy can be to improve customer experience by reducing complaint resolution time, better responses, etc. However, if you add a layer of OKRs to this business strategy, you will get measurable metrics to translate your strategy into results. Here, key results such as increasing customer NPS by 20% or recurring customers by 45% can be used as metrics as a part of company OKRs.

How to prioritize company OKRs?

With a wide array of goals to achieve, you are likely to come across conflicting OKRs when you try to set company OKRs. You will find yourself wondering which ones to choose over others. While each one of them has its merit, trying to boil the ocean by implementing all of them together will not yield any impact. It will only result in you being too stretched for resources with little or no progress. 

Hence, it is very important that you prioritize company OKRs based on the follow parameters, especially if you are setting company OKRs for the first time:

  • Impact on the bottom line: If an OKR has a direct impact on the profit/revenue of your organization and that is a business need, you need to prioritize it up front
  • Ease of implementation and achievement: Some company OKRs can be easier to implement than others, you can start with a couple of those to facilitate initial wins and promote team confidence and morale
  • Degree of interdependencies: As company OKRs, they will likely require collaboration between different teams, starting with OKRs which do not require a very high degree of interdependency can help set the path for others
  • Level of acceptance: Finally, some company OKRs will be accepted more easily by everyone in the team than others, it’s best to commence with them to secure organization-wide buy-in

Company OKR planning

Before you start putting down the OKRs on paper and implementing them, you need to have a series of company OKR planning and brainstorming sessions. Company OKR planning will help you in not only writing great and effective OKRs but also facilitate smooth implementation. Below are some questions you need to answer as you plan your company OKRs:

Question 1: Who will be a part of the OKR process?

Your company OKR planning should begin with deciding who will be a part of the entire process which starts from planning and ends with evaluation and realignment, thus, bringing the circle back to planning. Ideally, if you have several departments within the team, it is best to have at least one representative from the team to be a part of the OKR planning. Generally, senior leaders who have both functional understanding and institutional knowledge about the organization are ideal for being a part of the company OKR planning process. Once you have the initial planning committee in place, you can start by considering the following parameters for effective planning and implementation:

Question 2: Who will be the OKR champions or OKR masters?

During company OKR planning, you need to decide who will be the OKR masters or who will ensure that once put on paper, the OKRs don’t end up as a part of yet another folder that doesn’t see the light of day. OKR champions can be the same professionals who are a part of the planning committee or can be selected based on consensus. Ultimately, the OKR masters will be responsible to ensure progress for each key result. Adoption of tools, regular stand ups, etc. can help OKR champions track progress. 

Question 3: How will the OKRs be decided?

As they are expected to impact the entire organization, company OKRs are best set by the CEO. However, in most cases, the overarching objective will have key results that will be dependent on different departments. For instance, if the objective is to increase revenue, there will be a key result for the sales team, one will be there for marketing to help build a pipeline for sales and similarly, for product and design to innovate and create better products that either cost less or sell more. Thus, during the company OKR planning phase, it is best to get opinions from everyone to prevent a disconnect later and ensure ambitious but realistic key results. 

Question 4: How will the OKRs be cascaded across the organization?

The next important consideration for company OKRs is how they will be cascaded or trickled down across the organization. While the focus of cascading will be in a top-down manner, considering the company OKRs are set by the top leadership, it is important to ensure that they are not perceived as orders or performance review parameters for employees. Therefore, cascading of the OKRs should happen in a manner that while everyone in the organization is aware of what the company OKRs are, they are not burdened or limited by achieving only those as a part of their performance. 

Question 5: How will you ensure team alignment on the company OKRs?

Unless different teams are aligned on what the company OKRs advocate, it will be very difficult to ensure achievement of results. Again, the goal here is to not achieve alignment by means of force or order but to facilitate genuine acceptance and alignment with what has been set as company OKRs. Here, the OKR masters for each team will have a key role to play. We will discuss more about this in the following sections. You can also check our exclusive article on how to align teams using OKRs.

Question 6: How will you communicate OKRs to the teams?

A linked idea that arises from cascading of company OKRs as a part of OKR planning is communicating the same. Here, the idea is to ensure that everyone has the same idea of what the OKR seeks to achieve and don’t have differing views of what is expected. Therefore, the communication needs to be extremely clear. Thus, when you are in the OKR planning phase, you need to build a robust communication strategy to ensure everyone gets the same and right message about the company OKRs. You can follow some of the steps mentioned in the sections below to create an effective strategy. 

Question 7: What will be the cadence for company OKR review?

Finally, during OKR planning, you also need to set a cadence for subsequent meetings/ sessions that you will conduct to ensure the efficacy of the set company OKRs. One of the most important ones here is to set a cadence for OKR review and evaluation of progress. Here, you need to collaboratively decide on how often or frequently you would like to connect to gauge the level of progress for each OKR and discuss any challenges, opportunities, etc. that may have come to your notice. Furthermore, you will need to decide how often you want to create new OKRs and relook at the old ones. 

How to drive company OKR adoption within teams?

Picture yourself in a situation where you have set forward-looking and aspirational company OKRs which have the potential to take your organization to the next level of growth. However, your team members refuse to accept and adopt them. What do you do? 

To avoid landing yourself in such a situation, it is important to have an effective process in place that will help you drive company OKR adoption within team members. Here are a few ways you can achieve the same:

1. Ensure team representation

Make sure at least one member of each team is a part of company OKRs planning and writing. This will facilitate a feeling of engagement, belongingness and ownership, leading to greater acceptance and adoption. 

2. Have an OKR discussion with the team

Once you have set the company OKRs, as the CEO, have a discussion with each team not only to share what the OKRs are, but also the rationale behind each one and the potential impact on the organization as well as the individual. 

3. Give freedom and autonomy

At a strategic level, you may set broad company OKRs that involve every team. However, you should try to focus on just setting the objective/key result for the team and not how to achieve the same. Give team members the freedom to innovate ways in which they want to achieve it. It will lead to greater relatability with the OKR resulting in higher adoption.

4. Encourage them to set their own OKRs

Finally, while you set the company OKRs, encourage teams to set their own OKRs which align with the high level ones. Again, this freedom to set their own OKRs will encourage them to adopt the company OKRs even more deeply.  

OKR communication strategies

An important part of implementing company OKRs is to communicate them to everyone across the organization in the most effective manner. However, one time communication will not be enough. Ensure sufficient follow through. Here are a few tips to start your company OKR communication:

  • Host an open house where you, as the CEO, will share the company OKRs
  • Add the OKRs to spreadsheets or preferably an OKR tool that can help everyone see not only the OKRs, but also deadlines, progress tracking, etc.
  • Make OKR communication a part of your onboarding process
  • Conduct frequent meetings in smaller groups to share progress on company OKRs and reinforce them 
  • Seek feedback on the OKRs in closed groups and pay heed to the same
  • Encourage managers and team leads to communicate OKRs on a regular basis

Top 5 company OKR examples

Let’s quickly glance at some of the top examples of company OKRs that you can take reference from to set OKRs for your organization. 

Objective 1: Achieve high revenue 

  • Key result 1: Increase overall sales by 25%
  • Key result 2: Reduce production cost by 5%
  • Key result 3: Expand presence by establishing operations in 2 global centers

Objective 2: Create an engaging work culture

  • Key result 1: Reduce absenteeism by 20%
  • Key result 2: Bring voluntary turnover rate to 5%
  • Key result 3: Achieve e-NPS score of 9 or above

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Objective 3: Augment customer experience

  • Key result 1: Increase customer stickiness by 25%
  • Key result 2: Increase customer lifetime value by 30%
  • Key result 3: Achieve NPS of 8 or higher

Objective 4: Raise funds for the next stage of growth

  • Key result 1: Convert at least 35% first meetings with VCs to second meetings
  • Key result 2: Secure a reinvestment of xx from old investors
  • Key result 3: Secure yy from new investors in the next 6 months

Objective 5: Create a better company culture

  • Key result 1: Increase employee satisfaction by 35%
  • Key result 2: Acknowledge and appreciate work and effort at least once every month
  • Key result 3: Conduct open houses with senior leadership once a quarter 

Final Thoughts

Are you looking to automate all the processes we mentioned above? An Excel sheet will only get you so far. Using an OKR software will not only help you set, cascade, and communicate your company OKRs, but will also help you keep track of day-to-day progress on each of them across the organization with just a few clicks. 

 If you have got 15 minutes, see all these in action on this quick call with one of our experts. It will be worth your time, we promise!

Suggested Readings

Learn from the CEO: How Chargebee built a $3 billion SaaS unicorn with their efficient PMS

Should your business invest in OKR software: Calculate the ROI

Garima Shukla

Marketing, SuperBeings

Hello world! I am Garima and I research and write on everything we are doing to make the world of work a better place at SuperBeings

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Engagement
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x
min read

50+ Most Useful Employee Onboarding Survey Questions

Sudeshna Roy
Marketing, SuperBeings
‘Onboarding: How to get your new employees up to speed in half the time’ - George Bradt, founder and Chairman PrimeGenesis

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Did you know that a strong onboarding process improves new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%? 

However, only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job at onboarding new employees. 

This clearly states that while employee onboarding has a direct impact on the bottom line, most organizations miss out on how to get it right. 

Don’t let that happen to you. To onboard new employees like a pro, keep reading.

What is an onboarding survey?

By definition, an onboarding survey is a questionnaire that is administered on new hires to gauge their initial experience and level of satisfaction, in an attempt to understand their engagement and retention potential. 

As an HR, you can get multiple insights from an onboarding survey, including:

  • what employees thought about the organization when they heard about it for the first time
  • how their impression changed over time 
  • whether or not their experience aligns with their expectations, etc.

It can help you estimate how long the employees are likely to stay and how you can further optimize your onboarding process to make it more aligned with employee expectations. 

Why are onboarding surveys important?

An effective onboarding survey can help you reflect on your performance through the onboarding process, which directly impacts KPIs for organizational success, including:

1. Retention

93% of employers believe a good onboarding experience is critical in influencing a new employee’s decision whether to stay with the company. At the same time, 25% of a company’s new hires would leave within a year if the onboarding experience was poor. 

2. eNPS

20% of new hires are unlikely to recommend an employer to a friend or family member and an onboarding survey can help you identify the reasons for the same. However, new team members who were asked to provide feedback prior to their start date also had a 79% increase in willingness to refer others. Thus, illustrating how onboarding surveys and feedback can impact eNPS.

Read: How to use eNPS for better employee engagement

3. Satisfaction and Engagement

Employees with exceptional onboarding experiences are 2.6x more likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace and 70% say they have ‘the best possible job’.

4. Performance

77% of employees who went through a formal onboarding process were able to meet their first performance goals. However, 49% of individuals who failed to reach their first performance milestone had no official onboarding instruction. An onboarding survey can help you determine the effectiveness of your onboarding process.  

5. Other

In addition, your new employees might also have an inclination towards providing feedback as a part of the onboarding survey, which you will lose out if you don’t conduct the same. Research shows that only 26% of new employees recall being asked for feedback on their candidate journey and the hiring process before their start date wherein 91% of new hires are willing to provide this feedback. 

Employee onboarding survey: Best practices

Now that you understand the importance of an employee onboarding survey, let’s quickly discuss how to effectively run an onboarding survey. 

1. Set the cadence

You must coincide your employee onboarding survey with important milestones for the new employee in the organization. Mostly, these milestones coincide with the end of the first few months. Thus, you should circulate your onboarding survey after 30, 60 and 90 days respectively, with different objectives for each. Furthermore, you can send interim surveys in case you feel the need, for instance, when the employee starts a project, or when the orientation process is over. 

“Effective employee onboarding isn’t about swag, stickers, & company value pamphlets on their desk the 1st day. But, how you help them understand their goals & how co values are interwoven in operating are more important.”- Suhail Doshi, founder and chairman of Mixpanel, Inc.

2. Identify critical areas and build questions

Based on the milestones or cadence you have set up, it is important to identify areas you would want to cover with each milestone. For instance:

In the first 30 days, you should focus on themes like: 

  • Orientation process
  • Initial thoughts
  • Expectation alignment 
  • Recruitment process
  • Onboarding experience

In 60 days, you can touch on themes like:

  • Knowledge transfer
  • Level of engagement and satisfaction
  • Induction process

By the end of 90 days, focus should shift towards:

  • Manager support
  • Role clarity
  • Likelihood to stay
  • Organizational alignment

Once you have decided the themes, you can start building questions, a snapshot of which is covered in the next section or you can download the template now here. The themes can be fluid across milestones, depending on the context for your organization. 

3. Roll out the survey for participation

Once the milestone arrives, you should roll out the onboarding survey and drive participation. It is important to explain to your new employees why the onboarding survey is important and how they can fill it up. Give them the requisite time, deadlines and communicate what will be the next steps to encourage them to participate. 

4. Follow up

Simply rolling out the survey is not enough. You must reach out to your new employees to remind them to fill the onboarding survey as amidst numerous new things, they might lose track of it. Don’t push too hard, yet send subtle reminders to get genuine responses. For instance: employee survey tools such as SuperBeings integrate with chat tools like Slack, Teams, Gchat to send personalized nudges to fill out the survey in the flow of work at set intervals as well as allows them to participate directly without switching context. 

Unlock a wide array of survey questions and employee analytics. See how SuperBeings can help

5. Take action

Once your onboarding survey responses are in, slice and dice them to get insights into what your employees feel and leverage the data points to further refine your onboarding process to facilitate engagement, retention and advocacy from the beginning. 

Sample onboarding survey questions for 30-60-90 day review

Taking cue from the section above, here are 50+ onboarding survey questions that you can leverage to gauge the pulse of your new employees as they complete different milestones.

You can also download these questions as a template and use it whenever you need. Click here to download

1. Onboarding survey questions for 30 day review

a) Onboarding and orientation process

  1. How can we change or improve the onboarding process?
  2. What did you like most about the onboarding process?
  3. Was the orientation interactive and engaging?
  4. Did the onboarding process meet your expectations?
  5. Do you feel welcome and proud to be working here?
  6. How would you rate the duration and quality of your onboarding experience?
  7. How would you describe your first day?

b) Decision related questions

  1. What were the top 3 reasons for joining this company?
  2. Do you think those reasons have been met?

c) Technical training and knowledge transfer

  1. Have you received the training that you were promised during your induction?
  2. Did the training meet your expectations and was accurately described during the hiring process?
  3. Is the training relevant to your roles and responsibilities?
  4. Were adequate tools and materials shared during training to facilitate knowledge transfer?

2. Onboarding survey questions for 60 day review

a) Engagement related questions

  1. Would you recommend the company to others in your network?
  2. Do you see yourself working here in 2 years?
  3. Do you feel motivated to come to work in the morning?
  4. Do you feel prepared for your role?

b) Onboarding experience

  1. Did the first 30 days of onboarding go as expected?
  2. What is the one thing you would like to change from your experience so far?

c) Company policies

  1. Are you clear on the different company policies shared with you?
  2. Do you have any concerns about any of the policies that you would like to highlight?
  3. Do you think any policy is missing that you think must be a part of our governance?

d) Questions about team

  1. Have your team members been integral in smooth onboarding?
  2. Have you been able to connect and collaborate with all your team members?
  3. Do you consider your team members to be welcoming and inclusive?
  4. What is the thing you would like to change about how your team works currently?

e) Reflection questions

  1. Have you been able to achieve the goals you set out for your 60 days?
  2. How has your journey been so far?
  3. What has been your biggest accomplishment in 60 days?
  4. What are some achievements you would like to ensure in the next 30 days?

3. Onboarding survey questions for 90 day review

a) Role and expectation clarity

  1. Do you have an understanding of what is expected from you as a part of this role?
  2. Is your role similar to what was communicated to you during the hiring process?
  3. Do you have the necessary resources you need for the role?
  4. Do you have clarity of your goals?
  5. Do you understand how your work will be evaluated?
  6. Does your role meet your career aspirations?
  7. What do you think is the most difficult part about your role?
  8. What excites you most about your current role?
  9. Do you understand the importance of the work you do?

b) Organizational alignment

  1. Do your values align with the organizational values?
  2. Do you believe in the vision and mission of the organization?
  3. Do you believe your ideas are valued?
  4. Do you have clarity on the organization’s future plans and do you align with them?
  5. Do you see yourself as a part of this organization 5 years from now?

c) Manager support

  1. Have your conversations with the managers been effective?
  2. Does your manager support your career aspirations?
  3. Does your manager provide you with the necessary support to perform your role effectively?
  4. Do you receive regular feedback from your manager?
  5. Does your manager include you in key discussions, wherever applicable?

d) Other questions

  1. What are some of the challenges you have faced so far?
  2. Do you feel your onboarding was successful?
  3. How can we help you in improving the overall experience?
  4. Do you feel included and accepted by everyone in the team?
  5. How do you see yourself progressing from here?
  6. Do you have access to all the information you need?

Wrapping up (TL:DR)

By now, it would be very clear to you that an employee onboarding survey can help you in multiple ways to create a high performance culture. It can enable you to augment retention, engagement, satisfaction and advocacy among employees to ensure that there is minimal turnover and you are able to attract high quality talent. Ensure that you roll out an onboarding survey at 30/60/90 days frequency to check onboarding experience, knowledge transfer, manager support, role clarity, etc. 

You should focus on other forms of employee feedback on culture, training and development opportunities, level of engagement, manager effectiveness, workplace collaboration, work-life balance, among others. 

Finally, you should focus on leveraging technology and automation to add efficiency and effectiveness to your onboarding survey and process. 

Research shows, automating onboarding tasks resulted in a 16% increase in retention rates for new hires.

Thus, consider partnering with a survey platform which enables you to:

  • Use science-backes best practices onboarding survey templates
  • Track employee milestones automatically and roll out surveys on due date with zero to minimal manual intervention 
  • Integrate surveys with existing chat tools for reminders and sending out survey questions
  • Use NLP for decoding sentiments behind open comments to understand the reason behind each response
  • Use other employee engagement surveys to get the whole picture of new hire engagement

Related Reading

How to use employee engagement survey comments

Best employee engagement survey tools in the market today

Performance
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x
min read

How to Give Constructive Feedback? (With Examples)

Sudeshna Roy
Marketing, SuperBeings

When it comes to performance management for employees, you would agree that feedback plays an important role. However, only offering positive feedback and appreciating the performance of your employees is not enough. You need to give them an equal amount of constructive feedback which is specific to ensure high levels of performance. If you feel that your employees may not embrace constructive feedback, think again.

Research shows that 92% of people believe that constructive feedback is effective at improving performance.

In this article we will help you understand how you can give constructive feedback and examples you can leverage. 

What is constructive feedback?

Constructive feedback is essentially a tool that most forward looking professionals leverage to help others in their team with specific and constructive inputs on areas where one’s performance can be improved. Put simply, if you have an employee who doesn’t pay attention to detail, constructive feedback involves helping them acknowledge that this is a problem area, and more than that, enabling them with the support to overcome the same. It involves not only identifying a performance problem, but also, providing action items and ways to address the same. 

Importance of constructive feedback

Now that you have an understanding of what constructive feedback means, let’s quickly look at some of the top reasons why constructive feedback is important. Constructive feedback:

  • Improves performance: It enables your team members to understand how they can perform better with specific inputs on areas of improvement
  • Reinforces expectations: It helps your employees clearly gauge what is expected out of them in terms of performance, and sets clear deliverables and measurement parameters to avoid any surprises during performance appraisal
  • Boosts morale and confidence: It involves also appreciating employees for a job well done and illustrates how they can become a better version of themselves
  • Facilitates employee stickiness: It ensures that employees see your organization which cares about their professional growth and encourages them to stick around longer, and even act as advocates for others.

Positive feedback vs constructive feedback 

When delivering feedback, you must understand the difference between positive and constructive feedback and ensure that you use both of them where they fit the best. Here a quick distinction between positive feedback vs constructive feedback:

  • Positive feedback focuses on a job well done and highlights where an employee has excelled. Whereas, constructive feedback talks about areas of improvement and action items for desirable outcomes. 
  • While positive feedback seeks to reinforce the positive behavior, constructive feedback focuses more on facts and traits.
  • Positive feedback is a reflection of the past performance and doesn’t necessarily have a futuristic orientation, however, constructive feedback takes reference from the past to feed better performance in the future.  
  • “Your presentation during the board meeting was crisp and informative” is an example of positive feedback. Whereas, “While your presentation was informative, you can focus more on articulation to ensure that all your research is communicated in a way that everyone is able to understand. Using pointers can help here”, is an example of constructive feedback.
In a nutshell, positive feedback is a reinforcement tool, whereas constructive feedback is a mechanism to facilitate development. 

How to give constructive feedback

With an understanding of the fundamentals of constructive feedback, let’s quickly jump to the best practices which can help you deliver constructive feedback in a nuanced and effective manner. 

1. Decide when to give the constructive feedback

The first thing you need to focus on is ensuring that the timing of the constructive feedback is ideal. For instance, a busy period when the employee is putting in a lot of effort may not be ideal for giving them feedback about their performance from three months ago. At the same time, ensure that you provide constructive feedback regularly and consistently, to avoid recency or primacy bias. However, don’t offer feedback when you are angry about their performance either. 

2. Set the context and build trust

Before you get down to giving the feedback, set the tone. Share with the employee the purpose of the meeting and make them comfortable prior to sharing your reflections. It is important that you build trust so your employees can share their perspective and don’t feel intimidated by what you have to say. 

3. Share your reflections

Once the context and tone is set, start sharing your reflections. Your focus should be on sharing what you have observed about their performance. However, ensure that you also share how the same is likely to impact their career growth as well as organizational success. For instance, if you are providing constructive feedback about missing deadlines, you can use the impact of losing clients for the organization and a casual attitude marker for the employee.

4. Give specific examples

When sharing reflections, use specific examples of when you noticed a particular behavior. For instance, in the above example, you can share instances of when the employee missed his/her deadlines. Ensure that you use examples which illustrate a pattern, rather than a one off incident, which is very uncommon. Furthermore, always use concrete examples and not interpretation of what you hear or see.   

5. Balance positive and negative

With constructive feedback, your focus should be on helping the employee improve their performance and work on their areas of development.

However, simply pointing out their weaknesses or negatives in their performance will not help. You need to also talk about some of the positive aspects of their performance and how those qualities can help them absorb and implement their constructive feedback. 

6. Be empathetic

Emotional intelligence is extremely important when delivering constructive feedback. You cannot be apathetic towards your employee when delivering the same. Put yourself in their shoes to choose your phrases carefully. We will share some examples in the next section. Also, use your EQ to read the situation when you are delivering the feedback. If you see that the employee is getting uncomfortable, take a pause and comfort them first. Read their gestures and body language to ensure that the employee is not feeling attacked. 

7. Don’t make it personal

Like it or not, constructive feedback involves pointing out one’s weaknesses and areas of improvement. However, you should refrain from equating the performance of the employee with his/her personality or whole self. For instance, if someone misses deadlines, encourage them to be more organized or prioritize important work, than labeling them as a procrastinator. 

8. Encourage response from the other side

While you are delivering the constructive feedback, you have to make sure it is a dialogue.

The idea is to give the other person enough room to share their side of the story.

Try to understand whether or not they agree with your feedback and how they perceive the same. They may share the lack of support or resources, which have resulted in a weak performance. Be open to some reverse feedback as well. Again, your EQ must be at play here. If your employee has an outburst, or reacts negatively, you need to stay composed and calm them down. 

9. Discuss potential solutions

Once you and your employee are aligned on the areas of improvement, the most important part of constructive feedback is to provide adequate solutions to address the performance challenges. Don’t give abstract or vague solutions like be punctual if the employee misses deadlines. Rather, give very specific and action oriented solutions which are directed towards a particular outcome. The idea is to collectively understand the cause of the weak area of performance and use concrete solutions to remedy the same. 

10. Create a time bound action plan

Now that you have shared some potential solutions, you must revise the top action items with your employee to avoid any confusion. At the same time, you should focus on creating a time bound plan with key milestones to ensure that development is taking place. Summarize what was discussed and how you will proceed from there. Best is to set up a date to review the progress to ensure constructive feedback is paid heed to. 

Read our article on Start Stop Continue Feedback to give action oriented feedback

20 Constructive feedback examples 

Here are top 20 constructive feedback examples that you can use during your next conversation. To make your constructive feedback more effective, we have also illustrated examples of what you should steer away from.

1. Communication skills

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I would really like to know how you have progressed on the tasks assigned to you last month. It would be ideal if you could share a progress update on what has been achieved with a small summary of challenges/ support needed at the end of every week to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You have not kept your team updated about your work, this is highly unprofessional.

2. Attention to detail

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I was going through the work you submitted last week and I can see you have put in a lot of effort. However, I could see that there were some small errors and inaccuracies in the report across multiple sections. I believe that if you proofread your work thoroughly before turning it in, it will reduce the number of iterations and improve your quality of work. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You seem completely distracted as you have been submitting flawed and below average work, this will not be tolerated. 

3. Time management

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I understand that you are working on multiple projects, however, you need to ensure that the most important projects are not overlooked and their timelines are not missed. Therefore, I would suggest you create a list of tasks you are working on and check with the respective reporting managers on the priority and set clear expectations to ensure that no deadlines are missed. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You have missed your deadline again, it seems like you are not serious about you work. 

4. Goal achievement

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I see that you have been able to achieve only a part of the goals that you set out for this year. Maybe you were trying to spread yourself too thin. I would suggest you reduce the number of projects you are working on and ensure that the goals you set you are able to achieve. Furthermore, you must be vocal about the support or resources you need to achieve your goals. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

Are you even serious about your work, your level of goal achievement indicates otherwise. 

5. Absenteeism

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I see that you have been taking some time off lately, without any prior intimation. Let’s try to understand if there is a particular reason for the same. We can work on your schedule to make it more flexible. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You have been missing all meetings lately, this tardiness is not appreciated. 

6. Problem solving

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I see that you are excellent at execution of ideas. However, I believe that you need to focus more on coming up with solutions on your own. I would suggest participating more in the brainstorming sessions and coming up with solutions. Try to think on your own, before you reach out to others with the problem.

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You lack any problem solving capabilities, and will be stuck to execution for the rest of your career.

Wrapping up

Constructive feedback is integral to organizational success. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Always use facts and examples to deliver constructive feedback
  • Don’t forget to differentiate between positive and constructive feedback
  • Make sure you have practical tips or suggestions 
  • Leverage specific constructive feedback examples for specific performance problems, instead of being vague

Related Reading

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Performance
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How to Use Performance Management Cycle for High Performance Teams

Garima Shukla
Marketing, SuperBeings

While performance management has been a key priority for organizations, for a long time, year end reviews were considered to be the most effective way to facilitate the same. However, recently organizations are observing a shift towards continuous performance management with an introduction of the performance management cycle. This article will focus on different aspects of the performance management cycle and how it enables unlocking the potential of high performance teams. 

What is a performance management cycle?

Before going into the diverse aspects, you should first understand what a performance management cycle essentially is. If you have an idea of what continuous performance management is, you’re already a step ahead in the understanding. Performance management cycle primarily is a way or a model in which you evaluate or focus on the performance of your employees throughout the year. The idea is to break down the different elements of employee performance into different stages and focus on them consistently. It starts with setting goals and ends with rewards for a job well done, which leads to setting of new goals and the performance management cycle resets.  

Understanding 4 stages of the performance management cycle

While you may want to divide your performance management cycle into any number of stages, mostly there are four stages. 

Planning

The first stage, at the very beginning of the performance management cycle, focuses on creating a plan for the performance ahead. The idea is to have a clear understanding on what your employee must achieve and how you will eventually review and evaluate them. During the planning stage, you and your team member, collectively should:

  • Set SMART goals of OKRs based on the performance expectations
  • Have clear KPIs or metrics which you will use for performance appraisal
  • Clarify how individual goals or OKRs contribute to organizational vision

Thus, the planning stage of the performance management cycle sets the tone for the year ahead and ensures there is clarity at all levels. 

Monitoring

Once the goals have been set in the planning stage, you enter the monitoring stage of the performance management cycle. This stage essentially focuses on ensuring that things are moving as planned. The idea is to ascertain that your team members are more or less on track for specific milestones outlined as a part of goal setting. Additionally, this stage will help you address any performance challenges that you may observe, sooner than later. Monitoring stage includes:

  • Regular one-on-one meetings to review performance so far
  • Providing feedback to your team members on what you think has been going well and what needs to improve
  • Relooking at goals in case they are behind or ahead of schedule in terms of achievement
  • Understanding the kind of extra support or resources your team members might need to improve their performance
  • Having candid conversations with your employees on wellbeing, professional development objectives, and other factors which may impact performance, morale and engagement 

The monitoring stage essentially focuses on tracking the performance of your employees against the set goals to provide constructive feedback and help them perform better. 

Reviewing

The third stage of the performance management cycle comes into existence towards the end. It involves reviewing the performance and providing ratings based on the established KPIs and metrics. While this is the formal review process, if you have been constantly monitoring the performance of your employees, this will essentially be a consolidation of all the reviews and feedback shared overtime. While delivering performance reviews, ensure that you:

  • Shed any performance review biases that might come your way, including primacy effect, recency bias, halo/horns effect, etc. 
  • Give your employees concrete examples and facts to support your review, rather than being vague and ambiguous
  • Should try to get 360 degree feedback and review for your team members
  • Answer some of the following questions to create an informed review:
  1. Did the employee achieve the goals set out?
  2. What were the key enablers in their achievement?
  3. Did you observe growth in the employee during the performance management cycle?
  4. Did the employee share any concerns, and were they addressed?

Since you have been connecting regularly with your employees, the reviews will not come as a surprise to them, but will help you monitor the trends of their performance and guide the next stage for the employee’s professional growth. 

Rewarding

Finally, the rewarding stage in the performance management cycle acts as a culmination to one cycle and sets stage for the commencement of the next. The objective is to take into account their performance over the performance management cycle and create a culture of rewards and recognition to celebrate and appreciate high performance. Some of the quick ways to reward your employees include, giving them:

  • Healthy increments and promotions
  • Public appreciation through social media, company intranet
  • Bonuses and other incentives
  • Rewards like vouchers, gifts, etc. 

This stage is important to make your employees feel valued and motivate them to keep the performance going. It will also push average performers to step up their efforts and enable you to create a high performance culture. 

Why is a performance management cycle important?

Now that you understand the various stages of a performance management cycle, let’s quickly look at why the performance management cycle is important for your organization. It will help you:

  • Clearly define goals and expectations from your employees to drive directed performance.
  • Keep your employees engaged. When you constantly connect with your employees for 1-o-1 meetings and consistently take interest in their performance improvement, they are likely to feel engaged, satisfied and motivated.
  • Address performance challenges preemptively and provide your employees with corrective actions, resources and support to bridge performance issues.
  • Retain talent as employees who feel that their performance is being valued and receive regular feedback tend to stay longer at an organization. 

Top 4 ways in which performance management cycle leads to high performance

In addition to the above mentioned benefits, a performance management cycle can help you build a high performance culture in a number of ways. Some of the top aspects include:

Clarifies KPIs and metrics

What constitutes high performance can be abstract. For some, closing 5 deals can be high performance, for others, it might be closing 15. Planning stage in the performance management lifecycle will help your employees understand what constitutes high performance and thus, proceed towards it. 

Boosts recognition

A key part of the performance management cycle is the rewards and recognition. When employees feel their performance is being valued and recognized, they tend to double up their efforts, leading to a high performance team.

Facilitates communication and feedback

Monitoring and tracking followed by 1-o-1 conversations can help you communicate with your employees regularly. Not only will you track their performance, but will also listen to their concerns or challenges and offer them feedback. Such conversations and feedback have a positive impact on performance, leading to a high performance culture. 

Ensures appropriate training

One of the foundations of high performance is enabling your team members to undergo the right training. Performance management cycle can help you understand which training is important for your employees at which performance stage, realizing high quality results. 

Top tips for managers for effective performance management cycle

As a manager, there are several ways in which you can unlock the true potential of a performance management cycle. You are one of the key stakeholders who plays an important role in every stage of the cycle. Here are a few tips that can help you augment the effectiveness of the performance management cycle:

  • Invite employee participation and make the OKR setting process collaborative and action oriented
  • Provide constructive feedback to your employees, instead of being too sweet or too negative
  • Help your employees access the right resources and training they need to meet their goals
  • Give your employees a safe space to share their concerns and challenges
  • Don’t micromanage your employees in the name of monitoring
  • Be open about relooking at the goals in case of a misalignment as you move along the performance management cycle

Benefits of using a performance management tool

A performance management tool can significantly help you streamline your performance management cycle by offering the following benefits. 

Performance snapshots

Get automated performance snapshots of your employee’s performance over the 9 box grid to track performance trends over time and provide reviews without recency bias.

1:1 conversations

Leverage guided templates with AI based suggestions for your 1:1 conversations with employees during the monitoring stage based on performance over time. Receive suggested talking points for goal-centered conversations.

Compare performance

Look at historic feedback to see improvement in performance and compare performance over time. You can also compare performance of peers over specific parameters. 

Related Reading

How to create a high performance culture using OKRs

7 steps to effective performance management system

12 common performance review biases to avoid

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