Getting a positive piece of feedback is a great morale boost for employees, it makes them feels seen and they know they are doing a good job. But how else can feedback impact an employee?
When used correctly the feedback your employees receive can be instrumental in improving their performance and working on their development, here is how.
A better insight into performance
Enabling your employees to receive feedback from anybody in their organisation opens the door to a much fuller view of their performance. Most employees will come in contact with multiple co-workers during a working day, meaning numerous opportunities for feedback from a range of vantage points.
Colleagues are able to give insight into things that an employee and their manager might miss, bringing to their attention strengths that can be further developed and areas that could be improved upon too.
Goal setting
Once an employee has looked over the feedback they have been given they and their manager can start to use it to set goals. An example of this is if an employee receives feedback highlighting the need to improve their ability to meet deadlines; they could use this feedback to set the short-term goal 'hit all deadlines in the next month'. To achieve this goal, they would then establish a few objectives:
- Create a clear "to do" list with all tasks and due dates.
- Take a moment every day to review the list and check off completed work.
- If there's a deadline challenge, communicate it to their line manager and anyone else impacted.
By shifting focus from vague goals to specific target areas, employees can genuinely enhance their performance. It allows them to identify areas requiring improvement and develop an action plan to achieve success.
Development plans
Another way feedback can be used is for career development purposes. This involves looking at an employee’s development goals and seeing if the feedback they have been given can be helpful to achieving these.
For example, if an employee ultimately wants to become a manager, they will look for mentions in the feedback they receive that speak to strengths or potential blockers for stepping into a leadership role. This could be someone telling them they did a good job running a meeting, or someone feeding back that sometimes they are unclear when communicating instructions.
These pieces of feedback can then be made into development goals that would look to building on existing strengths, and finding ways to improve on something that could be a blocker towards them reaching their development goals.
Getting the right information
Whilst employees might be receiving a lot of feedback about their performance in general, there may be areas they are not getting feedback on that they feel could help them. By enabling your employees to request specific feedback from their colleagues you are allowing them access to the information they need to improve on their performance and development.
For example, if someone is looking to specifically focus on developing their communication skills, but their colleagues haven’t been giving them feedback in this area, allowing the employee to ask the people they work with how they find their communication means they will get feedback that can help them grow in this area.
Enabling feedback in your organisation
Having a tool in place that allows employees to give real-time feedback in a matter of minutes is a great way to increase the amount of feedback shared at your organisation. With Advanced Clear Review your employees can share feedback at any time, and not just as part of end of year reviews, meaning they can react to interactions with their colleagues straight away, allowing for timely and accurate feedback.
With our new ‘Feedback Circles’ feature, employees can ask their colleagues to give them feedback based on specific events or around certain traits. This means employees can get a clear insight into where they are doing well, and what areas they can look to develop, then set goals that target those areas specifically.
To find out more about our intuitive performance management system talk to a member of our team.
