Get Feedback Right to Increase Loyalty and Commitment
“I love criticism just so long as it’s unqualified praise.” — Noel Coward
Whether your organization has 50 or 50,000 employees, you realize that having the right people doing the right things for the right results is critical to success. A hot concept in the world of people management is “employee engagement.” The level of engagement that employees feel toward their work is positively or negatively impacted by the quality of feedback they receive about their performance.
Employee Engagement – A Refresher
There is mounting evidence that retaining a team of employees that are truly engaged in their work pays off for any organization in achieving its objectives or executing on its strategy. Recent studies by Towers Perrin-ISR found a 52 percent difference in one-year performance improvement in operating income between companies with high vs. low employee engagement. (High engagement companies improved 19.3 percent. Low engagement declined 32.7 percent.) The research also found a 13.2 percent improvement in net income growth over a one-year period for companies with higher employee engagement.
Using the Gallup organization’s work in this area, there are three types of employees:
1. Engaged Employees. They work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
2. Not-Engaged Employees. These people are essentially checked out. They are sleepwalking through their workday, putting time – but not energy or passion – into their work.
3. Actively Disengaged Employees. They are not just unhappy at work; they are busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these workers undermine what their more engaged coworkers accomplish.
It isn’t a stretch to say that every business leader would love to have competent and loyal employees. A loyal person is steadfast in allegiance and duty to another person or an organization. A loyal employee stays with you and goes beyond the call of duty to contribute value. Loyalty happens when engagement is high.
A consistent feature of organizations with highly engaged employees is a climate of open, effective and supportive performance feedback. In organizations with unengaged employees, performance feedback is often done poorly or not at all.
Feedback is What They Want
By 2010, it is projected that in the United States, there will be 4.5 million fewer qualified workers than available jobs, and by 2020 the work force will be 10 million workers short. Your future workforce and leaders in that timeframe will come from Generation X (people born between 1965 and 1980) and Millennials (1981 – 2000). The number one reason that Generation Xers left their jobs in 2007 was due to lack of feedback, and research on Millenials in the work force shows that they want instant feedback at the push of a button!
So, to avoid scrambling for non-existent or under-qualified employees in the coming years, give your current employees what they want – immediate and constant feedback, and do it in a way that creates engagement and loyalty. How do you do that? Here are some ideas to improve your processes, culture and actions as feedback providers.
Assess Your Current Feedback Practices
Ask (and answer) these important questions:
· About a focus on fixing weaknesses. Does your performance appraisal process result in new goals that are focused primarily on fixing the weaknesses of even top performers?
· About the level of effort it takes. To what extent is the structured performance appraisal process in your organization seen as a low-gain, high-effort activity? In what ways could you reduce the less value-adding appraisal activities and focus on the most valuable features?
· About being appreciative. To what extent do your best performers perceive that the climate of your organization is thankless versus thankful?
· About modeling feedback at the top. To what extent do key leaders support or disregard upward feedback? How might the leadership team better reinforce positive performance feedback and open communication practices within and across groups?
Nurture Better Feedback Practices as a Cultural Norm
Best supervisors and leaders realize that feedback helps people know where they stand, what they do well and where they need to adjust or grow. Here are some tips to nurture a climate of feedback that will improve levels of employee engagement and loyalty.
· Talk about strengths. The greatest opportunity to help people flourish in their work lives is to help them develop their strengths. So, a high-gain strategy is to notice, provide positive feedback and growth ideas around those things that your employees are good at and enjoy doing. When someone is able to do what he or she is best at doing, it is fulfilling. Imagine the positive outcomes of employee conversations that revolve around what they are good at, why those strengths are important for the company and ideas on how to tap into those strengths as part of an employee’s job. Asking questions about your employees’ strengths and interests is a good first step.
· Support collaborative performance feedback based on clear standards and expectations. A quick way to create a disconnection between yourself and an employee is to provide feedback that is a surprise; that is based on performance dimensions that were not identified as an expectation. As an employee begins in a new role, it is always better to hold a clear conversation on the key standards and performance expectations and to allow the employee to clarify what these expectations mean.
· Be more positive than negative. An oft-repeated complaint in organizations is that employees hear only the bad news, never the good news. Best organizations ensure managers provide good news, not only the bad. Research on negative feedback suggests that, on average, people remain receptive to negative reports of their performance only if it is balanced with four positive observations.
· Be very clear about expectations to get to the next level. Employees may reduce their loyalty to the organization if there is mystery, favoritism or inequity in the promotion process. Be clear with employees on the process and criteria around promotions along each career path.
· Be mature when giving feedback. Maturity is the personal ability to sustain a balance of courage and consideration when interacting with another. Courage is the confidence to state your observations, interests and needs. Consideration is the intent to understand and empathize with the perceptions, interests and needs of the other person. When giving feedback, best supervisors are both self-oriented and other-oriented.
Top Five Ways to Give Face-to-Face Feedback
1. Ask if they would like feedback.
2. Describe rather than evaluate.
3. Be specific.
4. Check to see if the message is clear.
5. Listen with empathy while maintaining the employee’s self-esteem.
Top Five Ways to Receive Feedback
1. View feedback as an opportunity to gain insight and generate positive ideas and direction.
2. Assume the good intentions on the part of the giver, regardless of his or her style in delivering feedback.
3. View feedback, whether negative or positive, as information about some of your behaviors, not as an evaluation of you as a person.
4. Ask for specific examples if feedback is general.
5. Resist being defensive (do not kill the messenger).
I am not suggesting that your organization abandon current, formal feedback processes—especially if it adds value. We recommend a yes/and mindset. Yes, it is good to manage the performance of your employees in a structure way AND your organization will benefit by encouraging an increase in more engaging face-to-face feedback practices.
About the Author
Brian Carlsen is a speaker, training facilitator and consultant. He serves as Practice Leader for Organizational Learning with St. Aubin, Haggerty & Associates, Inc. SH&A is a strategic human resource consulting firm. He is co-author of Attract, Engage & Retain Top Talent: 50 Plus One Strategies Used By The Best.
Contact Brian at www.staubin.net or 847-564-2840. See his blog an co-authored book review at www.bjcarlsen.blogspot.com
Whether your organization has 50 or 50,000 employees, you realize that having the right people doing the right things for the right results is critical to success. A hot concept in the world of people management is “employee engagement.” The level of engagement that employees feel toward their work is positively or negatively impacted by the quality of feedback they receive about their performance.
Employee Engagement – A Refresher
There is mounting evidence that retaining a team of employees that are truly engaged in their work pays off for any organization in achieving its objectives or executing on its strategy. Recent studies by Towers Perrin-ISR found a 52 percent difference in one-year performance improvement in operating income between companies with high vs. low employee engagement. (High engagement companies improved 19.3 percent. Low engagement declined 32.7 percent.) The research also found a 13.2 percent improvement in net income growth over a one-year period for companies with higher employee engagement.
Using the Gallup organization’s work in this area, there are three types of employees:
1. Engaged Employees. They work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
2. Not-Engaged Employees. These people are essentially checked out. They are sleepwalking through their workday, putting time – but not energy or passion – into their work.
3. Actively Disengaged Employees. They are not just unhappy at work; they are busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day these workers undermine what their more engaged coworkers accomplish.
It isn’t a stretch to say that every business leader would love to have competent and loyal employees. A loyal person is steadfast in allegiance and duty to another person or an organization. A loyal employee stays with you and goes beyond the call of duty to contribute value. Loyalty happens when engagement is high.
A consistent feature of organizations with highly engaged employees is a climate of open, effective and supportive performance feedback. In organizations with unengaged employees, performance feedback is often done poorly or not at all.
Feedback is What They Want
By 2010, it is projected that in the United States, there will be 4.5 million fewer qualified workers than available jobs, and by 2020 the work force will be 10 million workers short. Your future workforce and leaders in that timeframe will come from Generation X (people born between 1965 and 1980) and Millennials (1981 – 2000). The number one reason that Generation Xers left their jobs in 2007 was due to lack of feedback, and research on Millenials in the work force shows that they want instant feedback at the push of a button!
So, to avoid scrambling for non-existent or under-qualified employees in the coming years, give your current employees what they want – immediate and constant feedback, and do it in a way that creates engagement and loyalty. How do you do that? Here are some ideas to improve your processes, culture and actions as feedback providers.
Assess Your Current Feedback Practices
Ask (and answer) these important questions:
· About a focus on fixing weaknesses. Does your performance appraisal process result in new goals that are focused primarily on fixing the weaknesses of even top performers?
· About the level of effort it takes. To what extent is the structured performance appraisal process in your organization seen as a low-gain, high-effort activity? In what ways could you reduce the less value-adding appraisal activities and focus on the most valuable features?
· About being appreciative. To what extent do your best performers perceive that the climate of your organization is thankless versus thankful?
· About modeling feedback at the top. To what extent do key leaders support or disregard upward feedback? How might the leadership team better reinforce positive performance feedback and open communication practices within and across groups?
Nurture Better Feedback Practices as a Cultural Norm
Best supervisors and leaders realize that feedback helps people know where they stand, what they do well and where they need to adjust or grow. Here are some tips to nurture a climate of feedback that will improve levels of employee engagement and loyalty.
· Talk about strengths. The greatest opportunity to help people flourish in their work lives is to help them develop their strengths. So, a high-gain strategy is to notice, provide positive feedback and growth ideas around those things that your employees are good at and enjoy doing. When someone is able to do what he or she is best at doing, it is fulfilling. Imagine the positive outcomes of employee conversations that revolve around what they are good at, why those strengths are important for the company and ideas on how to tap into those strengths as part of an employee’s job. Asking questions about your employees’ strengths and interests is a good first step.
· Support collaborative performance feedback based on clear standards and expectations. A quick way to create a disconnection between yourself and an employee is to provide feedback that is a surprise; that is based on performance dimensions that were not identified as an expectation. As an employee begins in a new role, it is always better to hold a clear conversation on the key standards and performance expectations and to allow the employee to clarify what these expectations mean.
· Be more positive than negative. An oft-repeated complaint in organizations is that employees hear only the bad news, never the good news. Best organizations ensure managers provide good news, not only the bad. Research on negative feedback suggests that, on average, people remain receptive to negative reports of their performance only if it is balanced with four positive observations.
· Be very clear about expectations to get to the next level. Employees may reduce their loyalty to the organization if there is mystery, favoritism or inequity in the promotion process. Be clear with employees on the process and criteria around promotions along each career path.
· Be mature when giving feedback. Maturity is the personal ability to sustain a balance of courage and consideration when interacting with another. Courage is the confidence to state your observations, interests and needs. Consideration is the intent to understand and empathize with the perceptions, interests and needs of the other person. When giving feedback, best supervisors are both self-oriented and other-oriented.
Top Five Ways to Give Face-to-Face Feedback
1. Ask if they would like feedback.
2. Describe rather than evaluate.
3. Be specific.
4. Check to see if the message is clear.
5. Listen with empathy while maintaining the employee’s self-esteem.
Top Five Ways to Receive Feedback
1. View feedback as an opportunity to gain insight and generate positive ideas and direction.
2. Assume the good intentions on the part of the giver, regardless of his or her style in delivering feedback.
3. View feedback, whether negative or positive, as information about some of your behaviors, not as an evaluation of you as a person.
4. Ask for specific examples if feedback is general.
5. Resist being defensive (do not kill the messenger).
I am not suggesting that your organization abandon current, formal feedback processes—especially if it adds value. We recommend a yes/and mindset. Yes, it is good to manage the performance of your employees in a structure way AND your organization will benefit by encouraging an increase in more engaging face-to-face feedback practices.
About the Author
Brian Carlsen is a speaker, training facilitator and consultant. He serves as Practice Leader for Organizational Learning with St. Aubin, Haggerty & Associates, Inc. SH&A is a strategic human resource consulting firm. He is co-author of Attract, Engage & Retain Top Talent: 50 Plus One Strategies Used By The Best.
Contact Brian at www.staubin.net or 847-564-2840. See his blog an co-authored book review at www.bjcarlsen.blogspot.com
Tags: and, cross-generational, feedback, giving, receiving, supervision
Comment
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Comment by Valerie Heritage on May 1, 2009 at 10:42am -
Hi Brian, I totally agree with you about how important giving and receiving feedback is in the employee engagement process.
We use a really practical process called index360 to obtain reliable and honest information which acts as a catalyst to open up the discussions amongst employees. This provides a structure and focus that highlights perceived strengths and weaknesses, giving a tangible platform to start gaining ownership and commitment amongst employees to work together to improve motivation, job satisfaction and ultimately performance. It also gets them used to giving and receiving feedback in a positive and constructive way.
Take a look at the web site www.index360.com - I would be more than happy to talk further.
Regards, Valerie
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