Mark Gerardot on How To Give Effective Feedback

Feedback is a necessary part of an employee’s development, and none of us can fully develop without it. This is because it involves acknowledging faults and allows workers to improve on them. Providing useful feedback can prove to be a difficult challenge, though. That is why the phrase, “performance review,” can elicit feelings of fear and anxiety because employers and coaches will be reviewing your performance in-depth and discovering where you can improve. If you find yourself on the giving end of feedback, understand that there are effective ways to do so to foster a productive relationship.

Be Timely With Your Feedback

When a specific issue or concern arises that requires intervention, be sure to give your feedback immediately after the event in question. When you do this, whatever criticism that you have to offer will remain fresh in your employee’s mind. They can begin to implement the feedback you gave into their work habits. The specific advice that you provide will prove to not only be immediate, but relevant to the situation. This can ensure that the same mistake will not happen in the future.

Do It Privately

Providing feedback is difficult enough if you are giving it to a group. Giving it to an individual is harder. Yet, that’s what’s required to be effective. While you want to praise someone publicly, if they are comfortable with that, you want to ensure that any criticism is made behind closed doors. This way, you can give the person in question your perspective, and avoid the risk of public humiliation. If you do it in front of others, it can foster negative energy and loss motivation as a result.

Keep The Criticism Brief

If someone is approaching you with constructive criticism, would you rather have them focus on one or two specific areas and have them provide you with guidelines to improve? Or would you rather be bombarded with a variety of faults that can make you feel inadequate on the inside? If you are delivering criticism, keep the area of critiques to around two issues or less. This will allow your employee time to improve on your suggested areas. Don’t try to fix all their mistakes at once. Otherwise, they won’t be able to work with the feedback you gave.

Being able to give feedback is a central part of being a leader. It is also a core part of being a good employee. Just because you aren’t a manager doesn’t mean you can’t give feedback to your leader. If you want to provide constructive criticism to your manager follow the tips that were already offered.

Originally published at MarkGerardot.net.

Mark Gerardot is currently with AMResorts in Philadelphia as the Creative Director. He has an extensive history in marketing and graphic design. With his knowledge and expertise, he is helping his team at AMResorts achieve their goals and potential.