Do’s & Don’t of Responding to Critical Employee Feedback

As managers and human resource (HR) professionals, we’ve all been there: an employee comes in and unloads negative feedback about their direct supervisor or another employee. Recently, I came across some perfect examples of how to handle and how not to handle this situation.

Company A was directly given the feedback from the employee to the owner of the company and his HR representative. She shared that the supervisor managing her project was verbally and emotionally abusing her as well as other employees and gave concrete non-subjective examples of the behavior. She also shared that almost every other employee had observed this and been affected by it negatively, but feared speaking up. She also offered to give additional examples or answer questions they might have. She also shared that she would not continue to work for the company and asked how her final paycheck would be given to her.

Not only did either the owner or the HR representative respond to her email for four days, but when she emailed to find out if they got her email, she learned more about the company. The HR Rep. never replied, which is definitely not how HR should operate! To make matters worse the owner replied saying nothing whatsoever about the feedback she had provided, simply saying that another employee will be expediting her paycheck.

Not only did this owner not let the employee know that she was heard, or thank her for providing the honest feedback, but he showed that his company did not care about its work environment, its employees, or its reputation. His initial non-reply and subsequent avoidance of the issue had the employee walk away feeling unheard and abused. When employees walk away like this they are apt to share this situation with others, who could be future employees or customers of this company. Thus, this owner has shot himself and his company in the foot. This is a perfect example of how not to handle receipt of negative feedback.

Company B had a temporary employee who had always gotten good reviews and received regular work for years from the company. This employee was treated to condescension to and yelling from her manager. She emailed the owner of the company with details of the exchange, along with specific examples. She stated that she could not continue to unless the situation was remedied or if she could work under a different manager. She also shared that she enjoyed working for the company.

The owner promptly emailed back thanking her for sharing her feedback and said that she would look into the situation and deal with resolving it. After this, the employee never received another call to work.

Though this company did the right thing by immediately responding to the employee, it was clear by never hiring this stellar employee again that she was in effect being punished for having given it. This is known as “kill the messenger” and is not an effective way to handle critical feedback. Killing the messenger sends a message to this and other employees: Don’t speak up as it has undesirable consequences, so keep your mouth closed and remain unhappy. Not only do unhappy employees poison a workplace and lead to unhappy customers, they also leave and tell others outside the company about their experience. These people could be potential employees or customers, and this leads to a company’s brand reputation going in the tank. Eventually, this will catch up with this company in things like having trouble attracting and retaining customers and employees. Lesson: what goes around comes around!

Company C had a top-performing temporary employee provide some feedback to his executive manager and to HR about his direct manager’s unsavory behavior. He gave specific examples of the behavior as well as how frequently it was occurring. 

His executive manager immediately responded to his email, copying HR on the email. First, he thanked the employee for providing the feedback. Secondly, he apologized for what the employee experienced and indicated it was not the kind of work environment the company wished to have. Thirdly, he told the employee that he would investigate the situation and if necessary, provide the manager with some coaching.  He then asked the employee if this remedied the situation if he would be willing to continue working for that manager. The executive manager also asked if he would work in other positions in the company for other managers. The employee said yes to both.

This company handled this situation in an optimal way by thanking the employee for sharing the feedback, apologizing for the employee’s experience of it, (which illustrates empathy and concern,) and letting him know that it would be looked into and remedied. Note that the company is not admitting guilt by apologizing for it before they conduct an investigation. This is critical given that there are always two sides to a story, and the executive manager does not yet have the other side in order to learn if this situation was provoked, what the circumstances were, etc. (Apologizing for something without knowing the whole story can later lead to this being perceived as an admission of guilt by any plaintiff’s lawyer looking at the situation.) Take special note that the executive manager is apologizing for what the employee experienced . . . the employee’s experience of the situation, not their ownership of or responsibility for it. Good managers and HR people know that one must always do an investigation of a situation to get the full picture.

A caveat: there are certain circumstances where a situation is extreme and can be visually observed or witnessed, etc. which may call for special handling of receipt of critical feedback which may warrant a tweaking of the suggestions above.

In summary, follow the lead from Company C: thank, apologize for the employee’s experience, investigate, and remedy. Remember its acronym: TAIR. And just as importantly, if you do not practice TAIR, your reputation will be torn, leading to negative customer and employee consequences.