5 Ways to Improve Giving Employee Feedback

Giving specific and constructive feedback enables employees to stay on track and produce top quality work. Your employees want to know how they’re doing whether it’s good or bad. Feedback is a way to avoid misunderstandings, correct minor performance mishaps before they become a problem, and keep them engaged and working toward their goals. Whether employees are doing great or not being held accountable, feedback improves engagement and motivation in daily tasks. Here are 5 ways to improve giving employee feedback in the workplace:

Make it One-on-one

Employee feedback should never be a public event. Feedback should be delivered in a private one-on-one meeting regardless of positive or negative content. People don’t want to be the center of attention, and employees are less likely to respond to public feedback as they would in a private setting.

Make it a Two-way Conversation

Effective employee feedback is a conversation between an employee and the manager. Many times employees are on the front lines of the organization, so they have a different understanding of what is working and what is not. And make sure that the conversation is comfortable so your employee feels empowered to respond to you with constructive feedback.

Stay Positive

When delivering negative feedback, acknowledge a positive otherwise your employee could feel attacked. That feeling could result in a defensive reaction from your employee and, in return, they can become disengaged and unproductive. Corrective feedback is invaluable only so long as it’s perceived as helpful that’s why it’s important to always combat negativity with positivity.

Be Specific

Whether you’re giving positive feedback or constructive criticism, your words need to be specific and to the point. General comments leave room for assumptions and confusion. Don’t leave your employees in the dark; be specific and task-focused.

Be Prompt

Don’t wait until the next quarterly review to discuss employee actions. If you wait too long, you run the risk of getting distracted by the negatives. Productive feedback requires giving it frequently so when the quarterly review comes, you can focus on the big picture and be empowered set accurate and progressive goals for your employee.

Get your team focused by following these 5 tips for better employee feedback. For more information on productive feedback visit the BirdDogHR website. To learn more about performance management trends check out the Performance Management: Then vs. Now infographic.