It’s the start of a new year, which for most organisations means planning for the year ahead. Providing valuable and constructive feedback can help create your next steps towards smart goals and effective development plans. Giving feedback is a tricky area to master so, to get you off on the right food, we’ve compiled a list of tips for both employees and managers on how to give feedback the right way and start the new year with a bang.
Tips for Employees
Giving feedback to colleagues
Start with positive feedback, base your feedback on observations, facts and examples
Think about the specific behaviours that are important for your colleague to do an amazing job. If you notice room for improvement, share it with your colleague in break-down points.
Provide a sense of direction. Practical examples are easy to remember so your colleague is more likely to take up your suggestions.
When you listen actively, you know more about your colleagues’ fields of interests and discover development solutions. The knowledge will help your feedback be more constructive.
Don’t just give someone feedback and leave them with it. Come back to the person after a week or a month, depending on the nature of the matter.
It takes practice to give constructive feedback. People hold various perspectives and respond to feedback in different ways. Practice gives you the flexibility and confidence in delivering feedback in the most constructive way.
Completing your Self-assessment
Think about what and how you want to improve next year. Do not blame others for shortcomings in your performance - think of a constructive way to address the subject.
Make sure to highlight what went well, why you enjoyed working on certain projects and what skills you used.
Improvement is part of your career development, recognising areas you want to improve on will also help your manager to coach you better.
Think about your career and the role you want to take in the future. What skills do you need to develop to get there? Make sure to explain what you enjoy doing the most.
Tips for managers
Giving feedback to employees
Give positive feedback first. Explain what your employee did in particular so they can learn what type of behaviour they should keep up in future.
Even if you only have positive feedback to give, you should encourage your employees to continue improving by helping them set goals and new challenges.
Be careful not to base positive feedback exclusively on results. Sometimes even if an employee puts forth their best effort, a project could fall through due to some external reasons. It’s at these times that positive feedback can be most effective in counteracting the demotivating feeling your employee may be experiencing after not seeing their efforts materialize.
It’s important to clearly explain why this is affecting their performance. Refer to specific situations will encourage employees to recall their past behaviour and think about what actions they could take to change their performance.
Remember that the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset is that people with a fixed mindset see their abilities as static so feedback can often be seen as a personal attack. Framing your feedback in a way that focuses on behaviour, rather than traits, emphasizes that you are drawing their attention to certain areas because you believe it will help them improve their performance. The safest way to avoid this is to make statements based on facts and observations.
Though you may see several areas your employee needs to work on, overloading them with feedback could overwhelm them. Avoid confusion by focusing on improving one or two areas at a time. Analysing metrics of your employee’s performance will help you decide which skill to work on first.
Give your employees a chance to respond to your comments so you can see it from their perspective and properly address the situation. Remember your job is to give them perspective on their actions. Give suggestions of ways they could adjust their performance and ask what steps they think they could take. This is also a good way to make sure they understand and will take steps to change their behaviour. Ask for advice on how you as their manager can help them to achieve this goal. This will reinforce your willingness to help them and demonstrate your receptiveness to receiving feedback yourself.
So, whether you’re a manager providing useful insights for your team, or a team-member embracing 360-feedback culture and helping your team develop day by day, keep these tips in mind. You’ll be ready to launch the new year with the perfect formula for a feedback culture that sets everyone on the road to success.
Liverpool HR offers a boutique and tailor-made Human Resources Consultancy service to dynamic and growing businesses that do not have HR departments or to organisations who need additional support to…
Post articles and opinions on Liverpool Professionals
to attract new clients and referrals. Feature in newsletters.
Join for free today and upload your articles for new contacts to read and enquire further.
