7 effective strategies for constructive employee feedback

As a manager, it is your job to give employee feedback regularly and frequently. ​

Providing employee feedback on performance is an important part of helping staff do their job well. Most employees know that if they take on board clear and constructive feedback, their overall performance will improve. Ultimately, this benefits everybody on the team.

However, some employees might take feedback as criticism and not have a clear understanding on how to improve.

To help you give effective feedback in the workplace, we are going through why employee feedback is so important, the difference between criticism and constructive feedback, as well as tips and examples for providing better feedback to your employees. 

Feedback is a critical part of employee management.

When done right employee feedback is a tool for helping staff improve performance, to set goals and to figure out any skill gaps to inform professional development. 

It is an important part of running an effective team and creating a modern workplace that challenges employees to continuously grow and learn and do better in their field. 

Constructive feedback can:

• Boost professional development 
• Grow relationships between managers and employees 
• Set expectations 

Giving feedback effectively is about growth, not blame or pointing out negatives. 

There is a big difference between feedback and criticism. 

Criticism is talking at employees, pointing out where their performance is lacking, and focuses on the past. 

Constructive feedback is solution-focused, strengths-based and should leave employees feeling empowered to do their work better. You might have heard of it described as a compliment sandwich. 

Feedback helps employees see what you don’t want by contrasting it with what they can work towards. It all depends on the way you approach performance feedback.  

One way you can be more productive with your feedback is to have regular one-to-ones with your employees. 

SOURCE: Office Vibes

It is your job as a manager to help employees do their best work, not to micromanage, blame, or tell them everything they are doing wrong. 

Setting up regular meetings with your employees to give and receive feedback will be much more helpful for you and them. 

Instead of calling it a feedback session, you could call it a check in, a goal session or just a catch up over coffee. This gives them a chance to tell you anything you need to know, as well as for you to provide useful feedback and insights into their performance in a low-pressure way. 

Done in the wrong way, performance feedback might make employees feel scrutinized or attacked. Giving feedback to team members is a bit of an art, and learning to manage employees effectively will make a more enjoyable and productive workplace for everyone. Add these tips to your employee management checklist!

Think of this conversation kind of like writing an essay or presentation. There’s an introduction, a middle and a conclusion. Before giving feedback, set the tone of the conversation by saying what you are here for, give them a heads up before the conversation, and be specific about what it is you are going to address. 

If you have regular one-to-ones with employees, this will feel more like a goal setting session than feedback. Posing it in this way gives employees a chance to reflect on their own performance regularly and a space for you to provide any feedback necessary. 

The setting that you give feedback in matters almost as much as what you are saying.

Think about some of these questions when giving employee feedback:

• Are they comfortable? Am I? 
• Should I give this feedback in the moment so that they remember or is it part of their larger objectives? (Some feedback is more effective the same day it happens so that they don’t forget!) 
• Does this need to be formal or could it be done in a simple conversation?
• Are there other people around that don’t need to hear this feedback? 
• Could this be seen as ganging up on them in the way I’m acting/speaking? 
• What is my relationship to this person, do I need to adjust the setting to be more/less formal?

Remember: people will remember the way you make them feel more than the words you say.

Although you may have noticed a dip in their performance, you might be the only one to see it. There are usually two sides to every story, and you might not have all of the pieces until you are giving feedback to your employee. 

When giving performance feedback, it is good to be subjective and state things from your point of view. Using “I” statements can feel more constructive than telling them what they have done wrong. 

For example, instead of saying something like 

“You haven’t been hitting your sales targets this month”, 

Subjective feedback would be more like 

“I’ve had a look at the sales you have recorded so far this month and compared with last month I can see that you are not as close to your targets as you planned. Talk to me a bit about that”. 

The most important part about giving feedback is to figure out the next step. Whether you do this together or encourage them to go away and think about an answer, it is not productive to simply criticize people. 

Instead of blaming or focusing on what has already happened, come up with a plan for doing it better in the coming week/month. This would be a good opportunity to come up with some specific KPIs that will help you both see whether there has been any improvement. 

SOURCE: Office Vibes

Employees need examples of what you want and how they can actually do it. 

Let’s look at an example of providing employee feedback. Instead of saying something like 

“Your performance has dipped and I need you to do better”

Specific feedback would be more like 

“In our last goal session we talked about how you wanted to do two hours of upskilling every week. In your weekly report I can’t see any reading or upskilling logged. What could you be doing to make sure that it happens this coming month?” 

Although you need to give feedback as a manager, it is also important to create dialogue. This is why setting regular catch-ups is important! It lets employees explain, brainstorm and have a lot more agency over their goals and targets. An internal locus of control where they are self-motivated will almost always be better than simply being told what to do. 

Letting them speak and asking good questions also gives you an insight into anything that is going on that you can’t see in their day to day performance (e.g. personal issues). This is especially important if you are managing a remote team and don’t see them everyday. 

As outlined above, a feedback session should have a beginning, middle and end. Even if it is a short conversation, make sure you round it off on the same page. Let them know the expectation going forward, remind them of any goals you have set, and how they can talk to you if anything else comes up. 

Giving employee feedback is just one part of managing staff and building a positive, growth-focused team. By focusing on solutions, rapport, specific examples, and two-way dialogue, performance feedback can be an exciting and positive part of managing a team! 

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