Making Feedback " Effective"

Feedback is a word that we hear lot of time during our day to day life. Be it school or organisation, from students to employees, everybody receives and expects feedback from their teachers or managers or their senior authorities.

How easy this word may sound but providing employees with feedback can be nerve wracking.

The thing that needs to be kept in mind is that giving feedback is important but providing employees with 'effective feedback' is what matters.

How can employees ensure that the feedback they provide to their team is effective?

The answer is by Focusing on " Constructive Feedback"

Constructive feedback or supportive feedback is given to employees to help them identify solution to areas of their weakness.

Constructive feedback needs to be fact based and solution oriented.

There are certain ways which can help managers provide their team with constructive feedback.

1) Avoid feedback to micromanage your employees : Frequent feedback is good. Providing too much feedback , however isn't always necessary.

Try to make sure your employees feel empowered to do their job.

Suppose if any employee is about to make mistake, take time and think " what's the worst that can happen?"

If that mistake would cause significant damage to your organisation it is appropriate to intervene.

If not, then try to mentor your employees by asking why they are doing something or just tell them how could they do it better.

2) Show your employees respect when you provide constructive feedback: It is always said that there is always a right place and time to do everything, same rule applies for providing constructive feedback also. It is considered that providing " Constructive feedback" in private is far more effective than in public.

If you are providing a positive feedback, then by all means publicly acknowledge your employee. But if you need to correct their behavior or address a skill gap, it is best to keep it private.

3) The importance of why :

If the performance of employees is not as expected, convey your expectations and it's purpose.

Instead of concentrating on what they did wrong, show them what should have been done. Explain them why things need to be done in a certain way, which in turn will help the employees to perform to the fullest of their capabilities.

4) Focus on behavior rather than personality :

' Choice of words' play an important role while providing feedback.

To ensure that whatever feedback you are providing to your employees turn out to be effective, focus on the behavior not the person.

Be mindful of your actions as well like your body language and eye contact.

5) Listen to understand and not to respond :

Providing feedback to employees not only include just telling them that what do they need to improve but also listening to them about what the employees are feeling or any situation that they are facing that we as managers are not aware of.

It's important that they are a part of conversation and feel heard. Get to know more about what challenges the employees are facing and how can you help them overcome these challenges.