Those who are new to the leadership role, as well as many seasoned veterans, may find it difficult to provide employees with constructive feedback to boost productivity and accountability, as well as increase employee retention within their organizations. While one-on-one confrontation can be intimidating for many people, leaders and employees alike, constructive feedback is the most important tool employees can receive. This article addresses common issues that leaders face while providing feedback, and it provides tips on how to effectively provide feedback to employees.
The Internet provides a vast array of advice for new leaders on providing feedback to employees. Are Your Employees Looking for a New Job?, Tackling Problems No One Wants to Touch, Your Employees Want the Negative Feedback You Hate to Give, and How to Coach Your Really Good Employees are all well-written and recent articles that provide great advice on how to attain this goal.
Providing constructive feedback is an important skill new leaders must learn in order to boost productivity and accountability, as well as increase employee retention within organizations.
Offer a safe environment for open discussions. A recent article on Inc.com, Are Your Employees Looking for a New Job?, explored the correlation between New Year’s Resolutions and employees leaving their current positions in favor of other opportunities. While career movement is a sign of a strengthening economy, you might not want your top performers to take the opportunity to leave. An effective way to get your employees to stay is by offering a safe environment for productive conversations about the workplace. By allowing employees to air their grievances, you are giving yourself an opportunity to fix small problems before they become the reason your best employee decides to seek other employment opportunities. Allow employees a chance to share ideas and discuss their problems, and you not only learn ways to keep your employees, but you may also gain insights that may have been otherwise overlooked.
Offer guidance for advancement within your organization. The article on Inc.com also stresses the importance of mentoring your current employees. Even small organizations that don’t always have much room for advancement, it is important for employees to feel that they can grow within the organization and don’t need to always look elsewhere for advancement opportunities. Identify the employees that wish to advance and work with them to meet that goal.
Face problems straight on. This can be extremely difficult for many people, as ignoring issues or dancing around problem areas is a lot easier than addressing them straight on. But according to Tackling Problems No One Wants to Touch, the only viable option for leadership is to deal with problems directly as they arise. As with anything else in life, admitting that there is a problem is the first and most important step in solving the problem.
Provide positive as well as negative feedback. When you hear the phrase “constructive feedback,” you may assume the only feedback that is constructive is negative feedback. But according to an article on HBR.org, that’s not always the case. A recent survey from the organization found that employees respond to “corrective feedback.” This means that whether employees are being praised or reprimanded, they want to know how they can perform better. So learning how to effectively relate this information to your employees is an essential and beneficial skill for new leaders.
Identify employee goals and how they align with company goals. According to How to Coach Your Really Good Employees, it is important to meet with your employees and discover their goals. Most of your best employees probably have their eye on a different position. Find out what it is. If it’s a different role within your organization, help them build the skills they need to make that move. If it’s a role outside of your organization, find out why they are attracted to that position. You may have a similar position within your organization that your employee might consider. Use this information to your advantage to mold your employees into more productive and better-satisfied workers.
Providing employee feedback can be a tricky and undesirable task, but it is an extremely important skill for all leaders. It also needs to come with the attitude of helping employees be more successful. By utilizing these tips, you will have more productive and better-satisfied employees on your team.
Resource Articles:
http://www.thedailymuse.com/mgmt/how-to-coach-your-really-good-employees/
http://www.inc.com/suzanne-lucas/are-your-employees-looking-for-a-new-job.html
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/your-employees-want-the-negative-feedback-you-hate-to-give/
http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2014/01/20/tackling-problems-no-one-wants-to-touch/?utm_source=brief
Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc. by Dianne Crampton
About Dianne Crampton
Dianne licenses and trains HR professionals in the use of TIGERS Team Development and Work Culture tools. These tools improve workforce collaboration by promoting behaviors that building high performance teams and organizations. These researched and validated principles include trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. They form the TIGERS acronym. To schedule a business call to determine if TIGERS is right for you call 877-538-2822 withing the US or schedule a skype call here https://www.timetrade.com/book/KZLC2
