Provide Effective Feedback to Employees in 7 Steps

According to industry experts, providing feedback to your employees can:

• Ensure employees’ career advancement,?
• Strengthen relationships between you and your workers,
• Maintain a healthy work environment, and
• Contribute to the growth of the company.?

To help you master it, we’ve created a step-by-step guide with key tips on providing effective feedback!

*This article is the abridged, adapted version of the blog post originally published at the CAKE.com blog: https://cake.com/empowered-team/providing-effective-employee-feedback/ ??

Step #1: Create a healthy, open atmosphere in your team

The atmosphere in your team before the feedback determines how your employees receive criticism.

If you promote transparency and open communication, your team will trust you. Thus, they’ll be more likely to accept constructive criticism and understand its purpose is to improve their chances of succeeding as a team.

Step #2: Prepare for the feedback session

Make a list of the main points and desired outcomes before the feedback session. Be specific and use examples to ensure your employee understands every point.?

In addition, decide whether you’re going to meet with the employee in private or not. If your feedback is constructive — always make the discussion private. In case you’d like to praise your workers, do it in front of the whole team for a greater sense of accomplishment.?

Step #3: Set the right context

Start the feedback session by explaining the reasoning behind organizing it and the value it brings to your employees and the team’s work.?

Always maintain a positive attitude and a friendly atmosphere. This way, workers won’t feel like you’re reprimanding them and will be more open to listening to your thoughts.?

Step #4: Deliver feedback in an optimistic manner

By now, you understand that a friendly attitude and specific feedback with examples go a long way in ensuring your feedback is effective. Moreover, you should always focus on the work instead of the person, as employees could otherwise take your words personally.?

Use a sandwich method to prevent the discussion from becoming too negative:?

• Start with a positive,?
• Proceed with constructive, and?
• End on a positive note.??

You don’t have to use this method for every feedback, as some employees may prefer a more direct approach.?

Step #5: Ask for questions/suggestions

Feedback conversation shouldn’t be one-way. After every point, give employees the opportunity to share their thoughts and questions.

Also, encourage your team members to make their own suggestions on how they can improve and how their workload could be managed better.?

Step #6: Develop a plan

Together with the employee, create a plan of action for the next couple of months. This way, you’ll make sure you’re on the same page, and the employee won’t feel lost, not knowing how to improve their performance.?

To do this, you should first prioritize the actions for improvement.?

Then, set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals for each action. In other words, every action should:?

• Follow your overall vision and mission,?
• Be clear,
• Be realistic,?
• Add metrics to measure progress, and?
• Contain milestones to keep track of the goals.?

Step #7: Check in regularly

Check in regularly to support the employee throughout each stage of the action plan. This will also make it easier to monitor their progress.

Moreover, be open to modifying the action plan if you notice that some aspects aren’t meeting set goals.?

Effective feedback allows both your employees and the company to grow

With the help of our guide, you’ll easily be able to cover all of the basics of effective employee feedback.?

Don’t forget — you can always get better at giving feedback. Thus, ask for thoughts after feedback sessions to ensure you’re doing your best for your employees' growth.?

Good feedback is one of the ways you can increase your workers’ productivity. If you’d like to do even more for your company's productivity, check out the CAKE.com Bundle .