Feedback plays an important role in increasing the productivity of organizations. According to the traditional ways of doing business, feedback should be provided only at the time of the annual performance review.
However, organizations have come a long way from being traditional, they are adapting the more intelligent ways of working and feedback is no longer a yearly affair. Providing continuous feedback has proven to be effective and beneficial.
If there is a drop in performance it needs to be identified and communicated immediately. If you are planning on waiting until the annual review process it will essentially be too late to give any guidance or corrective measures to improve the employee’s performance.
Not only the employee but also the organization loses business owing to poor performance or drop in productivity. In a similar manner also recognize your employees at the right time to reinforce their exceptional performance.
If the moment is missed, there are fair chances that employees would lose their motivation to maintain their good performance. If organizations want to overpower their competitors they need to maintain a culture of continuous feedback.
Here are the 5 tips that will help you master the art and promote the culture of continuous feedback.
5 tips to build a culture of continuous feedback
- Communicate mission, vision, and goals clearly
It is important as leadership that your employees are well aware of the mission, vision, and goals of the organization. For that first, you need to have a foolproof plan. After formulating the plan you then need to communicate it to everyone in your organization.
Next, you need to understand where you stand today and where do you want to see yourself in the future- gap analysis. This clarity and transparency will help the employee be more connected to the organization’s values.
Once there is clarity you need to be a keen observer, whenever you notice any deviation you will need to provide feedback to the employees. Please remember this is not a one time process and needs monitoring at all times. By giving continuous feedback employees can realign towards organizational goals.
- Understand the purpose of the process
To implement something on a regular basis you will first need to understand the process, you need to understand feedback essentially helps employees improve themselves and better their productivity. But employees also need to understand, that when they are provided with the feedback they need to implement on it.
Continuous feedback doesn’t have to be only one way- managers to their team. Feedback should be a dialogue and not a monologue, employees should feel free to communicate with their managers so the managers can identify any potential reasons for a drop in performance and figure out corrective measures.
You need to provide your employees’ opportunities to voice their concerns If the employees feel their opinions don’t matter they will not want to stay in the organization. The leadership in the organization should be open to feedback culture from its employees.
- Provide necessary channels/tools to provide feedback
Make sure you choose the right channels to send and receive feedback. Some employees are comfortable receiving written feedback without a one-to-one session and some prefer the latter. It all depends on the individual and their comfort level.
Most organizations these days, conduct a group feedback session apart from just individual sessions. There are times where employees feel comfortable sharing their feedback in a group rather than on an individual basis.
You can also design an employee feedback survey where an employee can send their feedback by filling out the survey and the managers can do the same for their team members. Using specific tools and software makes the process more streamlined and an organization can keep a record of the data thus obtained.
- Make sure your employees are accountable to feedback
If you as leadership are taking efforts to improve the process in your organization, every employee in your organization needs to be aware and feel accountable towards the process. There is a reason why feedback is important and should be a part of the work process.
They need to know and understand the ways in which this feedback system works and know what changes it can bring to the total functionality of the organization. Maintain consistency, give honest feedback, respond to these feedbacks in time and see how this changes your organization for better.
- Make your employees aware of the importance of continuous feedback
It is quite natural you will have to give your employees time to adjust to the changes you have implemented, you can’t expect them to know everything and adjust to changes overnight. They will need some time to get accustomed to these changes.
Hence you need to train your managers so they can, in turn, train their team member about the significance of continuous feedback. Include all departments in this training, right from the mailroom to the CEO’s chamber.
This process once implemented successfully can bring about significant changes in employees. Remember feedback will not always be positive, at times it will make you uncomfortable, but this is how you will be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses and work in the right direction to improve upon them.
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