Sunday, September 15, 2013

USING FEEDBACK AS A TOOL FOR EMPLOYER

Extracted from “The Star – 14th Sept 2013”

 

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ESTABLISHES CRDEIBILITY

   According to Barry Posner and Jim Kouzes of The Leadership Challenge, studies have shown that “credibility is at the foundation of leadership”.

   It is necessary for leaders to walk the talk, but how would you know if your actions are correct if you have no idea what is exactly that you’re doing? A transparent environment reflects whether or not you as a team leader, have enabled an employee or a department to perform better. It also provides healthy pressure to ensure that you are effective and responsible.

   Apart from being self-aware, feedback also produces social awareness for employers. It allows for a sense of connectedness between management and subordinates while building loyalty towards the organisation. 

MANAGES EXPECTATIONS

   This is especially cogent for employees who are new to the organisation. Different companies have varying expectations of behavioural and performance outcomes and it may take some time for the newbie to align himself to the company’s vision and mission.

   Allowing for feedback provides the opportunity to catalyse this process. Employees need to understand the organisation’s core focus as well as their own department’s responsibilities in order to motivate themselves to operate at their full potential.

NECESSARY FOR APPRAISALS

   Annual reviews are perhaps the only formal way of providing feedback to employees. It is usually met with apprehension and fear, but as an employer or a team leader, you must be able to provide constructive criticism where necessary.

   Appraisals ought to be done with a more personable attitude to show that you as an employer, value the person behind the contributions and are not just obsessed with the bottom-line.

   These feedback sessions should help the employee to develop his/her own strengths. Feedback also helps to show that you are in sync with what is happening at the grassroots level, providing to the higher level management that you are a capable team leader.

RESOLVE CONFLICTS

   How many times have post-mortem sessions evolved into finger-pointing scenarios where “he/she didn’t tell me that!” becomes the recurring comeback line?

   Feedback is necessary during and after projects to ensure that any form of miscommunication or misunderstanding does not result in severe backlash. Unresolved conflict will damage the team’s productivity and these sort of arguments may develop into bitterness amongst colleagues.

   As an employer, feedback creates space for you to act upon any sort of discontent before it spreads to the rest of the team. Respecting each individual’s unique point of view also allows you to function better as a team.

GUIDELINES ON HOW TO GIVE GOOD FEEDBACK

   As an employer/manager/team leader, here are some guidelines on how to give effective feedback:

1. Specify The Actions You Want Them To Take

Help employees meet a desired outcome by giving suggestions on how to execute a particular task. Include things like deadlines, approaches, topics or elements that you would like them to implement. The guidance that you provide will be a stepping stone on which they can innovate and improve.

2. Be Specific About Goals

“Write a report” is unhelpful; “write a two-page report on last week’s event that will give a clearer picture to the new employees” is much better.

   Giving precise objectives, however, also means that employers need to have a clear idea of what they would like to see. 

3. Suggest Ways To Improve

   Whether the feedback is positive or negative, employees need to be challenged to improve. Commenting on something unsatisfactory without providing an alternative will give the impression that the employer is also unsure of how to initiate progress. 

4. Criticise The Action, Not The Person

   This can be tricky with ethical dilemmas among certain personality types, but highlight an employee’s actions rather than character flaws. “This project could have been better executed with more research,” raises positive responses compared with “you were too lazy to put more time into this”. 

5. Build Relationship

   Try not to focus on just work and reviews when talking to an employee. Building a relationship will cause the recipient of a feedback to be less defensive while giving the employer credibility.

   Trust needs to be maintained so that nobody feels threatened or sabotaged.

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