5 Ways to Give Feedback Effectively
Posted: 09.15.2022
As an employer, it is important to give your employees feedback or constructive criticism when necessary.It may not always be easy, but it’s a crucial action to not only help your employees grow, but it can also aid in making your organization thrive.
Below we have provided you with five tips on how you can effectively do this.
1. Ensure you are specific in your feedback.
You don’t want to leave the employee confused about what they need to improve on. It can be just difficult for the employee to hear feedback, as it is for you to deliver it, so they may be less likely to ask for clarification if they feel embarrassed about it. This is why you want to ensure that you are specific about what exactly it is they need to work on.
For example, let’s say a report they submitted wasn’t laid out as you would have liked to see it. Instead of saying, “I didn’t like the layout of your report,” say, “I think what you have in your report is great, but if you could change up the formatting and add in more bullet points – it could help whoever is reading it follow it better.”
This shows the employee that there was nothing wrong with the report, it’s just a matter of making a few tweaks to the layout.
2. Have empathy.
As mentioned above, employees can take feedback hard, so it’s important to practice empathy and understanding. Some ways you can show this are:
- Being specific (again as mentioned above) helps the employee understand that the feedback isn’t about completing a task or finishing a project entirely wrong.
- If the employee would like to have a conversation about the feedback given, ensure you take the time to listen to their perspective.
- Allow the employee to feel whatever they are feeling (they could be shocked by it) and perhaps give them some space in the office after hearing your feedback.
- Make it known that you are there for them if they need to ask questions or help with working through the criticism they’ve received.
To avoid this shocking feeling as we have mentioned above, it’s best practice to give constructive criticism regularly to your employees. If there is an issue or concern, you shouldn’t wait six months or an entire year until the performance review to tell the employee what they are doing wrong. It isn’t really fair to the employee unknowingly making these mistakes and it also hinders your organization.
This also falls in line with giving compliments. Don’t wait until an employee’s performance review to tell them what a good job they are doing. If they did a great job on an assignment, send them an email telling them they did – it will for sure brighten their day!
4. Make sure the conversation is private.
This one should be a given. It’s not the time and place to single an employee out in a meeting to give constructive criticism. Negative feedback should always be given privately.
5. Use both verbal and non-verbal communication.
Depending on what the feedback is, sometimes you can deliver it in different ways. If it’s not at all major, sending a quick email about something they need to tweak should suffice. Obviously, if it’s a larger issue, you’ll need to have a one-on-one conversation with the employee.
You don’t want to run the risk of your employee being nervous every time they get called into your office thinking that they did something wrong.
Do you have any tips on giving feedback effectively? Let us know by emailing info@torontojobs.ca.
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