Research

• 96% of employees say that they want to hear feedback regularly.
• 64% of employees think the quality of the feedback they receive should be improved.
• 32% of employees say they have to wait more than three months to receive feedback from their managers.
• There is a 14.9% lower turnover rate in companies that implement regular employee feedback.
• 4 in 10 employees are actively disengaged when they get little or no feedback.
• 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week (compared with 18% of employees with low engagement).

Statement

Enhancers of this driver

• Managers who regularly communicate with their employees.
• Clarity of roles and responsibilities.
• Ensuring feedback conversations are a two-way street.
• Specific feedback that the employee can learn from and apply.
• Reliable, predictable routines around feedback which diminish apprehension.
• Reasonable balance of feedback - recognition and celebration of work well done as well as suggestions and correction.
• Protecting psychological safety in the exchange by maintaining the self-esteem of all parties.
• Authenticity and care in delivery style
• Considered choice of context, time and place for feedback

Detractors of this driver

• Only providing feedback in the annual performance review. There's no way to get better at something you only hear about once a year.
• Leaving issues unaddressed which then deepen and multiply.
• Not being transparent or authentic in your approach.
• Feedback practices that are dominated by negativity and criticism.
• Lack of care in the delivery style and context of feedback.
• One way communication with no opportunity to discuss.

Individual

• Ask for feedback regularly. Every company will have a different pace at which they make evaluations, but you'll want to find periods that work best for you. As your meetings become regular, you can begin to develop positive reciprocal relationships that help you to improve.
• Find an appropriate time to ask. Consider timing when setting up feedback conversations - both time of day and amount of time required. Maximise the opportunity for the other person to give you their valuable and detailed feedback.
• Help the other person to prepare. You'll want to let them have time to prepare to meet to give you detailed feedback, so it is best not to ask for immediate feedback spontaneously.

Leaders

• Light up the ingenuity of your crew. Ask for help and feedback. Showing your team that you are open to suggestion sets the scene for a positive learning environment. This also recognises those good ideas come from everybody - and not just delivered top-down.
• Avoid giving unsolicited advice. Only a third of people believe the feedback they receive is helpful. That’s because, more often than not, it’s unsolicited, which can create an immense amount of stress for the person receiving it.
• Make feedback practices routine. When feedback happens routinely, it becomes expected. It integrates into everyday operations, and we get better at it.
• Don’t wait for a quarterly review. Employee feedback immediately following an event has the most significant impact on performance. And engagement peaks when employees receive feedback on a weekly cadence.
• More frequent feedback can also establish trust between employees and managers. Practising regular feedback instils praise and constructive criticism as a regular part of the work environment, so employees feel more comfortable and open to giving and receiving feedback.

Organisation

• Encourage and reinforce the adage that all good business communication is easy and frequent. Make easy and frequent feedback practices part of your code of practice.
• Discourage the practice of occasional “Performance Reviews.” These can become high stakes conversations which arouse anxiety and apprehension. People can often feel hijacked when unexpected news is delivered.
• Embed reasonable notice periods and predictable agendas for feedback conversations in your organisational practice.
• Show that you value time spent in leading through positive feedback experiences by recognising and rewarding these behaviours.

• Learn how to improve from the feedback. Receiving feedback is only helpful if you can improve your work performance. Take the time to reflect on the conversation and consider the essential things you need to change., do more often or adapt.
• Prepare questions to ask. To make the most of your meeting together, you may wish to write down important questions to ask your colleagues that help you to gather essential information.
• Ask for specific examples. Employee feedback should be solutions-oriented, crystal clear, and to the point. Sometimes managers offer corrective feedback with general comments, like “Your work needs to be improved” or “I wasn’t very impressed with those reports. You have to do better than that”. This can leave you confused and in the dark. Ask for specific aspects of the work that needs to be corrected.
• Even when the feedback is positive, it is helpful to know what made it so good so that you can do more of it in the future.

• Model great listening. Promote empathetic and active listening. Give your reports time to express themselves without filling the space. When the leader speaks first, fewer ideas are surfaced.
• Don’t take the “sandwich approach” Helping someone improve should always be the goal of feedback but sandwiching corrective feedback between two pieces of positive feedback won’t soften the blow. This method creates confusion for the receiver, undermines your feedback, and can decrease levels of trust.
• Being upfront and transparent with corrective feedback sets the foundation for an authentic conversation. Focus on delivering feedback tactfully instead of beating around the bush.
• Where possible comment on the output and outcomes upfront rather than focussing on the person’s character.
• Help your team to feel secure when corrective feedback is being delivered by emphasising your interest in their success and their being able to get things right more easily.
• Brainstorm ideas.
• Make the conversation a two-way street. Let the receiver respond to your feedback and allow them to ask follow up questions. Once the issue is clear, then you two can work together to land on a solution or course of action.
• Focus on performance, not personality. Focus on an employee’s behaviours (what they do) rather than on their personality traits (what they are like).

• Grow an organisation of great listeners. Listening takes time and shows respect. Silence encourages contributions. Enable your leaders to open the floor for their people rather than fill it. Anchor and describe good listening practices in your values.
• Nurture a growth mindset. People with a growth mindset believe their abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. You can show this by making it part of your hiring process, investing financially in growth, recognising growing and getting better, and leading with vulnerability.
• Ask for help. Encourage contribution of upward feedback and ideas from all parts of your organisation.
• Make it easy with surveys, ideas boards and continuous improvement practices.
• Provide feedback training. Both giving and receiving feedback are skills. Like any ability, they must be developed and practised. To support a feedback culture, provide training and resources to your employees.
• Set the tone from the top. When employees see leaders model strong feedback principles, they're more likely to fall in line and do the same. Your leaders must hone their ability to give and receive feedback and set the example. To do this, they must consistently ask for feedback (up and down the hierarchy and sideways) and visibly show that they receive feedback well.
• Highlight decisions made based on feedback. Let them know when you make a decision or change based on someone’s feedback. Don’t only focus on communicating the decision or change; focus on the why. "Why did we do this? Because of your feedback."
• Feedback is a gift. If you don’t use it and appreciate the gift, you might not get another one. Having a feedback culture means that you respond and act on feedback. Employees need to see that giving feedback is worth their time. Don't underestimate the value of following up on what you do with the feedback.

• Notice and recognise when others do well, contribute to a happy atmosphere or quietly help in the background.
• Express gratitude to your fellow workers wherever you see an opportunity. Be mindful of your impact on others. Consider your choice of language, the timing, the setting, and relationship health when planning conversations.
• Notice when you are heightened and consider delaying responding to or interacting until you regain your balance.
• Slow down and listen - practise reiterating what you hear from others. Check in to see that you are both understanding the same thing - Don’t jump to conclusions.
• Feedback can be fun - set up for success by allowing enough time, discussing errors when small, asking for help and advice and co-building positive pathways forward.

• Feedback can be fun - set up for success by allowing enough time, discussing errors when small and building positive pathways forward.
• Instead of treating feedback conversations as a one-and-done, follow up with your direct report and show appreciation when you see improvement along the way. This will show them that you care about their success, motivating them to keep up the great work.
• Don’t criticise publicly. For some, even praise is better delivered in a private meeting. Some people don’t like being the centre of attention. You can also consider offering employee feedback in the form of a written response. This can give you time to reflect and offer a more thoughtful answer.
• Nurture positive and corrective feedback. Everyone loves positive feedback. But if you only focus on the good stuff, you risk ignoring problems and stagnating the growth of your employees. On top of which your praise might become meaningless. On the other hand, if you only focus on corrective feedback, you risk ignoring successes and undervaluing employee contributions. Strike the right balance of positive and corrective feedback, and provide outlets for employees to give and receive both on a regular basis.

• Create a feedback-safe environment. Nurturing a feedback culture to work relies on one crucial factor: having employees who are willing to give honest feedback. Employees need to feel safe and know that they won’t face negative repercussions if they give feedback. This starts with building trusting relationships and is reinforced by how feedback is received.
• Set clear expectations around feedback. Create organisational standards for what feedback looks like and consistently convey that message to managers and employees. Set organisational expectations around your feedback structure.
• Use different feedback channels. A feedback culture doesn’t only have one way to give or receive feedback. People prefer to receive feedback in many ways, and other situations call for different feedback channels. By providing a variety of feedback channels, you allow employees to give feedback in a way that they’re most comfortable in different situations.