HR Perspective

Whether you’re an experienced manager or a fresh grad who is just starting out in their career, feedback is and will always be a key element to your personal and professional growth. Everyone experiences challenges, setbacks, and learning curves. And without the help of feedback, we may struggle to move forward because of our blind spots. For organizations, fostering a culture of feedback is essential in boosting workforce performance. According to Gallup, a company that specializes in measuring and understanding human behavior, employees who receive daily feedback from their manager are 3.6 times more likely to strongly agree that they are motivated to do outstanding work compared to employees who only receive annual performance feedback. In essence, consistent and effective feedback loops not only benefit employees but also the performance and growth of the organization.

People managers have an important role in providing feedback to employees to help guide them toward meeting and exceeding their performance goals and career aspirations. Zenger Folkman, a company that develops models that help leaders and organizations succeed, conducted a study about preferences on giving and receiving feedback. In this study, 94% of recipients stated that corrective feedback improves their performance when it’s presented well. However, feedback is only helpful when it’s meaningful and actionable. In fact, Gallup found that only 26% of employees strongly agree that the feedback they receive helps them do better work. For many managers, providing meaningful feedback is a learned skill that takes practice. So how do people managers ensure that they are providing their employees with meaningful feedback? It starts with knowing what makes feedback meaningful.

Meaningful feedback is:

• Specific and descriptive. Meaningful feedback lets the person receiving the feedback know specifically what they did that can be improved and when it happened. It’s also important for the person receiving the feedback to know the impact of what they did.
• Focused on the behavior, not the person. Providing feedback can sometimes be a difficult conversation to have, especially if the feedback being shared is constructive. To avoid your feedback from coming across as a personal attack, remember to focus on the specific action that needs to be resolved.
• Helpful and personally owned. Providing meaningful feedback means sharing something actionable that you personally observed, and not what you’ve heard from others.
• Provided in a timely manner. Don’t wait too long before providing feedback, but at the same time, make sure you are providing feedback at a time that works for the other person. If you can, try not to give feedback to someone when they’re having a rough day or are just not able to focus on the feedback you’re about to share. Schedule a day when the person receiving the feedback can be fully present and actively listen.
• A dialogue. A meaningful feedback session includes listening to the other person’s side of the story. Having a dialogue also allows you to confirm if the other person understands your feedback.
• Followed up as needed. After an employee moves forward with an understanding of what they need to do and improve, following up on their performance and providing feedback on their progress will help them stay on track.

Giving meaningful feedback is a great way to help others as they progress in their careers. However, we also must think of our own growth and be able to gather meaningful feedback that can help us. A Zenger Folkman research study involving over 50,000 leaders showed that leaders who ask for feedback are perceived more positively than those who simply are good at giving feedback. With this in mind, asking for feedback is also an expertise that we should consider upskilling when we think of our own career growth.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when asking for meaningful feedback:

• Be specific. Just like when we provide meaningful feedback, we must be specific when asking for feedback and indicate exactly what we would like to get feedback on.
• On-the-spot feedback vs prepared feedback. Give the person you’re asking for feedback time to prepare and put together their thoughts. If possible, let them know ahead of time if you have a presentation or project that you’d like to get feedback on, so they are able to prepare and take notes as needed. Avoid asking people for feedback on-the-spot as they won’t have enough time to provide the most meaningful feedback they can give.
• Transactional feedback vs relationship-based feedback. Asking someone to provide you feedback just because they are likely to give you positive feedback may not be the best way to uncover your blind spots. This type of feedback ends up being transactional instead of meaningful. Instead, seek out people who are invested in your growth and will provide you with honest and actionable ideas to improve.

By building the skill of effectively providing and asking for meaningful feedback, we promote a feedback-driven environment where employees feel valued and supported. Meaningful feedback has the power to cultivate growth for both employees and organizations. For employees, it’s an opportunity for them to uncover their blind spots and have a clear understanding of the steps they need to take to advance in their careers. For organizations, meaningful feedback drives performance enablement for their workforce, leading to increased productivity and growth. ◆