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Want to drive employee engagement and encourage growth and development while ensuring your top talent stays put? Consider revamping your outdated once-a-year performance reviews or cryptic “Can I please see you in my office?” emails in favor of ongoing constructive feedback.
Why? Because providing guidance and support in multiple ways fosters a culture of feedback that boosts confidence and leads to increased productivity.
Recent research shows that more than a third of workers want to receive more feedback — especially if it clarifies expectations, offers learning opportunities and can help them along their chosen career paths. And a 2022 Gallup poll revealed that continuous feedback fuels performance, motivating employees to do excellent work.
But with remote or hybrid workplaces — and people spread across different time zones — it can be challenging to make sure leaders’ feedback achieves the desired results. Here’s how to navigate this space effectively when we’re not all face-to-face.
Why Does Feedback Make Everyone Uneasy?
For many employees, being called in to see the boss provokes feelings of panic, and leaders may also find it intimidating to tell a direct report their work needs improvement. But forward-thinking organizations are learning that when meaningful feedback is delivered, people get the input they require to grow and thrive, said Kim Scott, author of “Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity” and “Just Work: How to Root Out Bias, Prejudice, and Bullying to Create a Kick-Ass Culture of Inclusivity.”
“It makes us uncomfortable to know what we're doing wrong, but it also makes us uncomfortable not to know what we're doing wrong,” said Scott, who lives in Silicon Valley, California, where she coached CEOs at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter and other tech companies.
“It’s kinder in the long run to tell the person when they're messing up so they can fix the problem. I had an employee, and I failed to give him feedback, and as a result, I wound up having to fire him.”
Leaders also tend to forget to be intentional around outcomes, which only adds to the discomfort, added Andre Martin, PhD, founder and operating advisor at Shift Space in Portland, Oregon, and author of “Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever”.
“Feedback can be given with different intents: to develop somebody, to increase productivity, to build trust, to re-recruit them back to the company. Often, managers and leaders don't bring enough intent into those conversations,” said Martin, who was chief talent officer and chief learning officer for companies including Mars, Nike, Target and Google.
Create a Safe Space and Foster Positive Relationships
Before offering feedback, leaders should build trust, rapport and psychological safety within their team, said Martin.
“Be vulnerable, imperfect and willing to share your own mistakes. Build a personal relationship with the individual where you understand who they are, what motivates them and where they're looking to go. They have to know you’re there for their success.”
Leaders should also create a well-defined set of behavioral expectations.
“Part of what makes feedback hard is we often haven't been clear as companies. What does ‘great’ look like in terms of how we should behave with each other every day? If we’re clear, it makes feedback easier to look for and also give,” added Martin.
Related Article: Employee Feedback Is Critical to a Great Employee Experience
Reframe the Two Types of Employee Feedback
Shift your focus away from positive or reinforcing feedback and negative or redirecting feedback by focusing on solutions, suggested Scott.
“I don’t call it feedback at all; I call it guidance — a combination of praise and criticism,” she said.
“Employees want to know what they're doing well and not doing well. Always start by soliciting: Don't dish it out before you prove you can take it. Then, focus on more praise than criticism and gauge how what you're saying is landing. People want a magic formula so the other person will never be upset by what you’re saying, but that doesn't exist.”
Also: avoid the antiquated “feedback sandwich” — stuffing negative feedback between two pieces of positive feedback — which primes employees to brace themselves for bad news while making them distrust your praise.
“Don’t only give critical feedback but also take the time to express what you genuinely appreciate about the person and what you like about working with them— not in the feedback sandwich but by expressing gratitude and focusing on the good stuff,” she added.
Be Specific, Actionable and Future-focused
Decide on the objective and how you think the employee can achieve it. Watch out for generalizations, which are ineffective, said Martin. Instead, discuss a specific situation, value or way of working, as well as the impact of your team member’s behavior.
“We often say, ‘You're not collaborative’ when the truth is that person might not have been collaborative in the way you needed them to be in that specific moment in time. So, discuss a specific moment, task or initiative that allows people to see it in context,” he explained.
“Feedback should always provide them the better solution, so it points everyone towards success. Never leave people in the dark; otherwise, you're just asking them to head in another wrong direction, and that's where engagement commitment gets eroded over time.”
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Related Article: How to Develop a Feedback System That Actually Helps Your Team
Offer Spontaneous Feedback
Impromptu two-minute conversations go a long way, especially in a hybrid workplace, said Scott.
“You’ll be having many little conversations that are helpful to a person instead of one big one that's incredibly painful,” she said.
“That sounds simple, but with back-to-back-to-back meetings, it's harder than it sounds. So, make 30-minute meetings 25 minutes, and hour-long meetings 50 minutes — that'll give you some time for feedback. If that's not possible, be willing to be late to your next meeting; feedback conversations are an important part of your job, often more important than being on time to your next meeting.”
But just because you’re having a quick chat doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare. Scott suggests going in with the right mindset.
“Be humble; maybe you're wrong in your observation. Remember, these are conversations; you're not the arbiter of what's true and not true,” she said. “State your intention to be helpful and immediate: The longer you hold on to the problem, the weirder it's going to feel to the person. ‘Why are they only telling me this now?’ Offer the feedback synchronously; don't send a Slack message, an email or a text. Just pick up the phone.”
Make Regular Feedback a Priority
Develop an inclusive feedback system linked to virtual meetings so everyone feels seen and valued, suggested Martin.
“It should be part of the day-to-day. We have a thousand touchpoints with our employees over the course of the year, ranging from big town halls to small meetings to one-on-ones to team working sessions; feedback should be happening in all those arenas because if we're not getting feedback all the time, it feels like an attack,” he said.
Martin recommends ending every team meeting with what he calls a positive gossip session.
“Everyone can give reinforcing feedback to someone else based on the behaviors they showed, not what they accomplished, because we want to repeat the very ways of working that bring excellence to our team and to our work every day. This opens the door for more redirecting feedback downstream,” he added.
“In hybrid and virtual environments, you have to curate that space very carefully; otherwise, it won't happen, and then you'll see all the bias inequity that falls out of that.”
Related Article: How to Equitably Handle Employee Recognition in a Hybrid Workplace
Cultivate a Culture of Feedback
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report showed that employee disengagement adds up to $7.8 trillion of lost productivity globally, and that’s partly due to a lack of feedback, Martin said.
“When people aren't receiving feedback constantly, they're constantly spending their creative energy trying to be successful while walking around in the dark, bumping into things,” he said.
“In a feedback-rich company, it's like you're writing with your dominant hand: it's high-quality, low-stress, and you feel more confident.”
Scott added that organizations need both impromptu feedback conversations and scheduled performance reviews.
“The best feedback shows you care personally about the person, and that you're willing to challenge them directly to help them improve,” said Scott. “Your job is to paint a picture of what is possible. You want your praise to be specific and sincere, and you want your criticism to be kind and clear.”
Done well, useful feedback proves you’re invested in your employee’s future. The best systems continue to evolve, laying the groundwork for productive problem-solving and innovative thinking. Organizations that are committed to being agile and responsive have the best chance to retain talented workers.
