Effective Feedback on Employee Performance

One of the fundamental principles of creating effective employees and to create an outstanding team in your organization is providing effective feedback on the performance of your team members. The Manager Tools series spends quite some time discussing the topic of effective feedback and I wanted to condense it to a few quick how-to’s in giving employees feedback.

Employee performance feedback should be based on the following principles:

• WHY: To encourage positive effective behavior.
• HOW: Through regular performance communication.

Before beginning to implement a feedback plan within your organization, it’s essential we understand what is feedback and why feedback is important to managers. Feedback to your team members is essential because:

• Your responsibility as a manager is to achieve results.
• You achieve results by helping your team members fulfill assignments.
• The end results are simply the collection of behavior of your team members.
• Providing good feedback encourages effective behavior (ineffective behavior is changed).

Providing effective feedback centers on 4 key steps:

1. Ask to provide feedback.
2. Describe what was done.
3. Describe the impact of what was done.
4. What to do in the future.

Step 1 – Ask to Provide Feedback

Asking the employee will create a positive, open atmosphere where the individual will be ready to receive your comment without becoming defensive about your comment. Don’t drop a bomb on them, prepare the way before coming out with the comment. Asking breaks the ice that it naturally there when you attempt to provide feedback to another individual about their performance.

Step 2 – Describe What Was Done

Tell the employee what took place, what you saw happen, or what you were told took place. This has to be something concrete, not a guess at why something was done, not something about attitude. It’s about what you see and hear or someone else saw and heard. Leave personal feelings out of it. Emotion should never be included in describing what was done. The statement “I hate it when…” or “I can’t stand it when” should never be used when giving feedback.

Step 3 – Describe the Impact of the Action

Tell the employee what the impact is of their decision or action on themselves, you, the manager, their co-workers, and their customers. What is the result of the behavior? The impact does not have to be dramatic so that feedback is initiated. Remember, you want to encourage good behavior and change bad behavior. Often times people do things because at the time they don’t realize the impact of their decision upon others or how it’ll affect the big picture. This is your chance to again, without emotional expressions or personal feelings, describe the impact of what took place.

Step 4 – Discuss What Should Happen in the Future

Not all feedback is negative feedback. For positive actions, affirm the action taken place and encourage it in the future. For actions that need to be adjusted, discuss potential alternate ways that the situation can be done differently in the future. For positive encouragements, statements of “Thanks!” or “Keep it up” do wonders in keep employees excited about the work they are doing. If correction is needed, encourage the individual to come up with possible solutions like “What can we do differently?” or “Can we do this a better way?”.