Feedback is a powerful tool to improve employee engagement, performance, and satisfaction. However, not all feedback is created equal. Some feedback can be demotivating, confusing, or even harmful. In this article, you will learn what are the common feedback pitfalls and how to avoid them, so you can use feedback to enhance employee engagement in your team or organization.
Feedback is essential for learning, growth, and development. It helps employees understand their strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. It also helps managers and leaders align expectations, goals, and standards. Feedback can boost employee engagement by showing that you care, value, and respect your employees. Engaged employees are more productive, loyal, and innovative.
Anchoring feedback to the organization’s mission, values, and strategic focus helps keep the conversation aligned for both the employee and the organization’s goals. Such feedback would ensure any employee developmental or performance standards have been met or identify what needs further development. A feedback conversation, with this in mind, will help lessen or remove the potential for defensiveness while still maintaining accountability and productivity.
In my experience open and honest feedback is crucial in being able to operate in a high performance team. This doesn’t have to be a negative experience for your team and you will see this delivered in your key metrics.
However, feedback can also backfire if it is not delivered or received well. Common pitfalls include giving vague, general, or irrelevant feedback, which can make employees feel confused, frustrated, or ignored. Providing only negative or positive feedback can create a distorted or biased perception of performance, leading to discouragement, defensiveness, or complacency. Additionally, giving feedback at the wrong time or place can affect its impact and effectiveness, while giving feedback without listening or understanding can make employees feel misunderstood, judged, or attacked.
Organizational culture also plays a significant role in how feedback is received, especially in a low-culture environment; this can be challenging, such as: Lack of trust: There may be a lack of trust between employees and their managers. It's crucial to establish a culture of trust & transparency where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions. Negative tone: When giving feedback, it's important to avoid a negative or accusatory tone. Instead, focus on specific behaviours & provide suggestions for improvement. Inconsistent feedback: There may be inconsistencies in how feedback is given and received. It's important to establish clear guidelines and expectations for feedback and ensure that they are consistently applied.
We must strive to create a safe space culture. This will take time to embed, but will make your team feel safe. Once you have this platform you will be able to drive performance and engagement side by side.
To avoid the feedback pitfalls, you need to follow some best practices for giving and receiving feedback. For instance, it's important to give specific, actionable, and relevant feedback to help employees understand their work and how it contributes to the team or organizational goals. Additionally, feedback should be balanced and constructive to recognize achievements, challenges, and opportunities. Furthermore, feedback should be given at the right time and place to ensure it is received in a positive and respectful manner. Finally, feedback should be given with empathy and curiosity to make employees feel understood, respected, and valued. This can also help build trust and rapport.
Global HR Leader driving talent strategy, succession management and diversity at Novartis
Setting context is very important. Being clear on what this feedback is in service of is critical. The recipient and the giver should be on the same page about the outcomes of the feedback, whether it is to improve upon a task, personal development or correcting an error. The other key element is mindset of the giver. Feedback has to be about getting to a better place, whether it’s building on a strength or working on shortcomings. It is not, repeat, not about being critical or mean to pull the recipient down. It has to be always about building up the recipient.
Throw away the “feedback sandwich”! When you combine a positive comment with a negative one, the positive comment is almost always forgotten. That’s because anything that resonates in the brain as negative carries a heavier metabolic load, making the “sting” last longer than the joy of praise. This is especially true when the positive comment is a contrived compliment. As an alternative, start your conversation with a note of gratitude, then move right to your point. They may still feel nervous to hear your feedback, but it is disarming to know you’ll be connecting as a team right away rather than applying a top-down approach where the recipient feels vulnerable or attacked.
Feedback can enhance employee engagement if it is used to recognize and reward employees for their efforts, achievements, and contributions, which can increase their satisfaction, loyalty, and commitment. Additionally, feedback can empower and enable employees to take ownership, initiative, and responsibility for their work, which can increase their autonomy, creativity, and innovation. Finally, feedback can develop and support employees to learn, grow, and advance in their careers, which can increase their competence, confidence, and aspiration.
Feedback can enhance employee engagement when managers strategically and intentionally create a culture of motivation, growth, and development. The steps below can be beneficial. Provide regular feedback, both positive and constructive. Help them understand their performance and areas for improvement. This helps to create a culture of ongoing development and growth Encourage goal setting and provide feedback on progress towards these goals. Foster a culture of two-way feedback, where employees feel comfortable providing feedback. Also, this creates open communication and trust. Recognize and reward employees for their achievements and contributions. Invest in employee development and provide feedback and support along the way.
Feedback can have a positive or negative impact on employee engagement, depending on how it is given and received. To measure the impact of feedback, you can use various methods, such as surveys and questionnaires to collect feedback from employees about their feedback experience, satisfaction, and engagement. Interviews and focus groups can help you gather feedback from employees about their feedback stories, insights, and suggestions. Additionally, observations and assessments can help you observe and evaluate the feedback behaviors, outcomes, and changes. Tools like Net Promoter Score, Employee Engagement Index, or Feedback Quality Index, techniques like Appreciative Inquiry, Storytelling, or Solution-Focused Coaching, and frameworks like SMART, STAR, or GROW can all be used to measure the impact of feedback.