I just spoke to her and she quit!

Date Posted: 03/25/2014

How to Give Positive Feedback at Work

The ability to give and receive constructive feedback is crucial to the success of any professional workplace relationship. Feedback feels very personal both for the person giving it and receiving it since it affects self-esteem and creates emotion. If the feedback being given is negative, the person giving it often doesn’t say what they really want to say because they feel that it may demotivate or hurt the person receiving it. This only stores up more frustration, annoyance and resentment which can make a person explode in a completely unrelated situation without the recipient understanding or realizing why this has happened.

For managers, giving feedback is an important tool as it gives them a chance to offer opinions or evaluations of someone else’s behavior or performance. Most managers say they dislike giving feedback and don’t think it is effective and most employees say they don’t get enough feedback that actually helps them improve.

Constructive feedback is always objective, non-judgmental and based on specific observations, encourages discussion and allows a positive course to be set for the future.

Be Specific

Don’t be too general in your feedback and give it often. It is a continuing process rather than a formal session given once or twice a year. It is important to identify specifically the issue of performance involved with specific aspects of the performance that you as the manager like or dislike.

Focus on the issue not the person

Praise good performers right away. When negative feedback is required, talk with the employee within 24 hours. Your employee can’t read your mind. Be explicit about what needs to be done, changed or was done well. Avoid statements like “you always ………” or “your never …….”. Take a right or wrong or good or bad approach. Give the information on what the person did to warrant a feedback. If they don’t know what specific behavior earns the praise, they have no way of knowing how to do it again in future.

Encouraging

Always try to focus only on the positive even when giving negative feedback. You will get much better results with praise than with criticism. When giving positive feedback, be appreciative without mentioning other things that might need to change or be adjusted. Save those for times when you need to talk to the person about a particular incident that needs correction or when you are giving constructive feedback in general.

Discussion

Although you should be armed with some solutions, discuss with the person concerned the possible solutions to the situation. Ask for his/her perspective on how they could resolve the situation. How can he/she improve? What worked well and what could have gone better? Questions like these establish a supportive atmosphere in which the employee can explore alternative approaches that might produce better results.

You’re not always right

Although you have all the data gathered, you might not really have the complete picture. Give time for the employee to speak up and make him/her feel you also want to hear their side.

Balance

Negative feedback should not outweigh positive ones. Make sure to provide a balance of positive and negative feedback, otherwise, employees will distrust your feedback and it will become useless.

Avoid feedback overload

Identify 2 to 3 important points you want to give feedback on. Giving too much feedback may confuse the employee on what needs to be improved or changed.

Summarize

At the end of the discussion, identify major points raised and discussed so that you both clearly understand what has been said and agreed upon. If necessary, arrange a follow-up meeting to review progress.

Based on findings, giving praise and constructive feedback makes employees perform best and promotes positive emotions that encourage them to be flexible and creative. Feedback is a useful tool for indicating when things are going on the right track or for redirecting problem performance. If feedback is effectively carried out, it encourages openness within the workplace and promotes constructive approaches in fine tuning staff performance to meet business goals, objectives and core values.

Need to give your business a shot in the arm by hiring some new talent from the Philippines? You can trust Ikon Solutions’ services and be certain that every detail of the hiring process is maximized in finding the best candidate for you.

IKON is a full services recruitment agency that specializes in recruiting personnel from the Philippines and other parts of Asia for the hospitality, medical, construction, oil & gas and other service industries. One of the leading newspaper in the Philippines, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, recently reported Ikon as being one of the top 20 overseas recruitment agencies in the Philippines. Following this, the leading overseas job website in the Philippines, Workabroad (www.workabroad.ph), has ranked Ikon as the 4th leading agency to which candidates apply. You, as the client, can therefore be sure that qualified candidates actively looking for jobs overseas will be applying to Ikon. And since we are also constantly headhunting the best talents available, our clients are guaranteed a wide and diverse pool of candidates to choose from.

To see how easily we’ll ensure your business stays fit and healthy, please email us at [email protected].

Ikon Solutions is a registered company. The Company Registration number in the Philippines is CS200816027. It is also registered in Hong Kong (No. 39366346) and Macau (No. 31030 SO).