Picture this: you’ve been working hard to deliver a great product to your clients—one that you and your team have been working on for weeks, even months at a time. And suddenly, an employee hands in something subpar. And this isn’t just something that can slide. This time, it’s something that needs to be reworked, and something the employee needs to hear feedback on.
So, you go over to their desk and lean over them to offer them some feedback on what you just received. But before you say anything, the employee’s face flushes a bright red and before long, they’re sobbing in the middle of the office. Maybe they mention that they thought that you were about to fire them, or even just reprimand them in front of all their colleagues.
And even if you weren’t about to yell your feedback at them, feedback offered in an impersonal and thoughtless manner can be just as devastating to your rapport with your employees.
As Melody Wilding suggests in “Overcoming Your Fear of Giving Tough Feedback,” being honest with employees can be a fine line to walk. And walking this fine line has some high stakes: you can risk either your business plummeting or losing employees out of dissatisfaction.
So, how can you walk that fine line?
Reframe How You Offer Your Employees Feedback
There are many schools of thought when it comes to how and when you offer your employees feedback. Some say to offer it mere days after any time they present their work. Others suggest offering regulated feedback quarterly and doing so for all staff equally.
However frequently you offer your feedback, however, try to keep in mind your intentions as a manager. You don’t want to embarrass or shame workers for not meeting expectations on their work. You want employees to feel motivated to do better. And that’ll be the key to making your feedback easier to deliver and easier for employees to hear.
Here are some tips for reframing feedback as not a disciplinary tool that is used in extreme cases of failure or error, but rather, as a regular tool for constant and steady improvement team-wide.
Top Tips for Giving Your Employees Feedback
1. Rethink How Often You Offer Feedback
As my purely hypothetical story suggests, offering feedback scarcely can make the event stressful for everyone involved. Normalizing it, then, means offering it semi-regularly (not too frequently so as to overwhelm the employee) so that when feedback comes their way, it’s not as big a deal.
As well, not offering your employees feedback regularly enough can actually make employees feel disengaged from their work and/or disregarded by their managers.
While there is no formula for how frequently you should offer your employees feedback, some sources suggest 3-6 times a year. Others simply suggest that once a year is by far not enough.
However many times you choose to offer feedback, make sure it’s a regular, standardized process, so no employee feels particularly picked on or unfairly criticized.
2. Organize Your Thoughts Ahead of Time
Let’s say that during a meeting you notice typos, errors, or any other problem with an employee’s work. It’d be easy to just point them out as they go along, but this would put them on the spot and embarrass them in front of their colleagues and higher-ups.
Instead, wait until you both have time to reflect on their work and gather all of the talking points you want to bring up.
This can be a tricky balance to strike, as you’ll want to address all the ways they can improve their work, but you also don’t want to overwhelm them and distract them from the main ways they can improve meaningfully.
So, take the time to prioritize which main points you want to bring up. Then, consider how you may deliver this information and what outcome you would ideally like to have from your employee.
If you’re looking for an encouraged and motivated to do better response, you’ll probably address your employee in a way that is not entirely disciplinary, but also not entirely flippant of any improvement that they could be making.
3. Meet With Your Employees One-On-One
Even if you think your piece of feedback will take no time at all or if it’s really not that big a criticism, offering feedback in public spaces can make this a negative experience. This is because, in addition to other factors, such as standing over them or using a lecturing tone, offering feedback in public can feel like a merely power-related move. And this can feel degrading and embarrassing to employees.
So, first thing’s first: send your employee an email to meet with you privately over Zoom, or if they’re in office, ask them to meet with you privately. The face-to-face (remote and otherwise) is an important factor: you don’t want your employee to misconstrue your tone or message.
And of course, when you meet one-on-one, you’re more likely to have a discussion that may further resolve any lingering concerns. So, once you offer your feedback, allow them the room to answer any questions or respond to any concerns you may have.
4. Use Direct, First-Person Language
Especially if you feel uncomfortable giving constructive criticism, you may fall into the habit of using indirect, casual language to try to make feedback feel less pointed. But the reality is, giving direct, person-first feedback will more realistically show you’re noticing something about their work that requires improvement.
For example, “I noticed there were many miscalculations on your last report. Because of this, our clients received the wrong information.”
Certainly, you can ask them if there were any barriers that stood in their way of doing the job as you wanted. But more importantly, you’ll need to give them an actionable task that can help them improve the current or future circumstances.
And when offering actions for improvement, be as specific as possible. This way, when checking in on the employee’s work in the future, you can see exactly where any problems may arise.
5. Offer Some Good With the Bad
Especially if constructive criticism is not offered frequently, many feel a need to balance out their criticisms with compliments.
But crucially, as David Hassell suggests, do not ‘sandwich’ your feedback with compliments. This can undermine your feedback and minimize the urgency for improvement.
Instead, try explaining to them why you trusted them with their work and/or why you believe they are capable of doing better. This will show your employee that you’re not just looking at what they did wrong. You’re also noticing what they’re capable of, and what room they still have to grow.
For example, “I trusted you with this presentation because of your great organization and leadership skills. But your slides weren’t ready as we had previously discussed. This left a hole in our presentation and didn’t adequately show what our team is capable of.”
Then, of course, discuss courses of action for improvement and future opportunities to let their talents shine. This way, they’ll have something to look forward to that can really showcase what they’re capable of—and who doesn’t love a come-back story?
6. Offer Specific Examples From Their Own Work
Criticism is perhaps by definition not constructive if it is not delivered in a way that one can act upon. That is, it’s not enough to say, a piece of work “did not meet expectations” or simply wasn’t “their best work.”
In order to more specifically address where an employee went wrong, or how they can improve their work, you may need to revisit their work. Then, pull from their work exactly where they had trouble or didn’t meet expectations. This will show them where their work failed (and thus, not necessarily where they themselves failed per se).
As well, of course, this can show them exactly how they can improve their work—maybe, implementing a closer attention to detail, or a new system for their work processes to prevent recurrent errors.
Then, once your employees are set up with their actionable tasks to work on, you can also follow-up on how they’re meeting their goals for improvement with goal-setting templates. BDC, for one, offers free templates that employees can download and fill in to more easily track their goals.
These are also great for checking in on employee improvement and making sure you’re up-to-date with their efforts to learn from their mistakes.
How do you offer employee feedback and track improvement? How often do you offer it? And is there any advice we missed in this article? Let’s keep the conversation going!
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