The power of employee feedback

 

Employee Feedback

Creating a culture where employee feedback is encouraged, and a growth mindset is championed is incredibly beneficial. However, it is less common than you might think.

It's not uncommon for many of us to find it difficult to provide honest, upfront feedback to our employees. Whether it's performance appraisals or pay discussions, the struggle to remove the emotion from these discussions is real and shared by several managers. You're not alone in this challenge. 

Even positive feedback can be difficult sometimes, so Natalie and Ewan look at the training and structures required to foster an open culture where people seek and receive honest feedback. 

They discuss how crucial good employee feedback is for businesses to flourish in a challenging economy and why leaders must take responsibility for it. 

Download the latest episode and subscribe to the podcast today. 

Transcript

Ewan (00:07):
Hi, good morning and welcome back again to Recruitment and Beyond podcast joined us ever by Natalie from Beyond Chan. Ashley, how's the week been?
Natalie (00:16):
It's been quite good for today's theme without giving in,
Ewan (00:20):
We have been
Natalie (00:21):
Doing a lot of items, training and additional items in terms of feedback, so not tell you too much the now and ruin our content, but yeah, it's actually quite well timed for everything that we've been doing this week.
Ewan (00:36):
Brilliant, brilliant. Well actually, yeah, no, I've had a busy week actually. We've been out at events, a lot of events this week. It's been busy in terms of startup events. We've been out at EIE, which is back, it's just returned after a couple of years, hiatus, which was good. Good engagement with lots of people there actually, and a really good opportunity to get back and network with everybody in that entrepreneurial space, which was good. And another good event as well at Burgess Salmon, we were just chatting through businesses and prepping themselves to make sure you've got all the legal requirements you need in place to make sure that you don't fall. Follow of the inevitable. No, a good week, a good week, and God, that's Friday. I'm not going to lie. So yeah, employee feedback, I think that was a topic for today and it's massive, isn't it? I mean employee feedback is such an important thing. We've talked probably endlessly about communication and how important it's in organizations, but that specifically employee feedback, whether it's good or bad, positive or negative, it's such an important thing. So is it something that's created as part of your culture? We've talked about this a bit, but do you almost have to create a feedback culture to ensure that you're doing it properly?
Natalie (02:00):
You have to. I think if you're missing it, you're miss it, miss out, isn't it? If you're not having that as part of your culture, a lot of people are navigating what it looks like and with obviously the logistics of the workplace at the moment and where people are and how to give that feedback. But a lot of the stats are saying that obviously feedback has required good or bad. And actually we talk about employee engagement. Employee engagement is nothing without feedback and it's dead. Interesting to see even some articles when you're having a look as well that have came to light in terms of being too nice at feedback as well. And the pitfalls, we can talk about all of that as well, but I think it's an area that we can't miss, but we need to, the biggest thing for me and that we've had a lot of is managers need training on it. It's not a lot of people, it's natural and they've been brought through various organizations and they're very used to it, but a lot of managers carry frustrations internally without being able to get it out in the right way because maybe they're worried.
(03:10):
Maybe they're worried. Yeah. Recent stats, it's in the top three obviously pay conversations is number one in terms of dealing with difficult conversations. Two is obviously about giving that horrible feedback. And then three would be about poor performance. So that's in the top three of the 10 most difficult conversations for a manager to have.
Ewan (03:33):
That's interesting actually. And I mean it obviously plays in people's mind and it'll affect their performance as well. So if you're having to feedback to your teammate and perhaps there is performance or whatever it might be, it'll start to impact on you. If you're starting affecting your mind and your attitude to your own work, it's going to really drag you down if it's playing on your mind to be able to give that feedback.
Natalie (03:56):
And do you think people, if it's poor performance for example, we're taking, people need to know you're actually doing yourself and the business and injustice by not telling them obviously in the best way possible. But remember as well, people are not bad. People don't generally come out to be bad people. They're maybe in the wrong job, the wrong organization, or they're doing completely the wrong thing or they're in the wrong industry. It's not that they're a bad person, there's just some things that need tweaked or completely turned on their head.
Ewan (04:31):
No, I absolutely believe that. I think you're right, and I don't know how we've managed to get to this point, but perhaps it is. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I don't know. But you're absolutely right. People just want honest feedback. I think they want to know upfront, is it good, is it bad? Am I doing a good job, am I not? What do I need to do? What do I need to do to improve? I think as an organization, you can't improve if you don't know what the problem is or you don't address the problem. And I think that comes back to honest open feedback. And I think you're right. People don't go out to be bad, they don't go out to form badly, but it's either a cultural issue, it's an organizational issuers, potentially the job they're in is just not right for them and it can have such an impact, a bigger impact if one person's not getting the right feedback. Other people see that other people see somebody who's in charge not addressing that starts to foster that culture of, well, if they're not doing it, I'm not doing it. Why does it matter? And is that where leadership, it's really important that leadership take the onus on this and can show team members maybe more junior managers, whatever it is, to the ability to be able to deliver that feedback. Is it really important? They lead by example.
Natalie (05:46):
It's dead hard. A manager has many hats at the moment. They have to obviously make sure they're getting the best out their people. They obviously need to make the magic happen in terms of the product, the service or whatever they're doing, but they also have to act as a coach and a coach can be a qualification, a coach can be trained, but it's not just nobody really is. Many little of us are actually genuinely good or have had an extensive amount of experience coaching, but there's just so much required. There's a certain technique, there's certain items in order for you to get the best out of your people. So I'd love to know how many in common listeners please, how many of your organizations have actually had dealing with difficult conversations training. We're starting to see more and more of it, more and more requests for it coming through because it's not something generally that the organizations teach. They just expect manager are good at the job promoted, here's a team, are you giving them feedback? Are you doing what you need to do? And it's not just something, but it has to be done. We cannot shy away from it.
Ewan (06:51):
Absolutely. So that training, what sort of things should you be looking for in terms of being able to deliver that? What sort of training should people expect as part of that constructive feedback, if you like?
Natalie (07:03):
Yeah, no, absolutely. It's having a lot of people choose not to do the conversation thinking we all think the worst in their head, don't we? Oh my God, if I have that conversation, he's going to do this, we're going to do this. But actually it's not sometimes what you need to say. It's just the way that we get that across or how we get across. So techniques and there should be some kind of forum that managers are able to in a safe space, be able to speak to each other to say, how did you tackle that? Or how can we deal with this issue? Or be able to bounce that off of each other as well to make sure that they have the best support to have those conversations as well. And it's even sometimes not even through not wanting to have those, but it's like task next just to move on to each task, but do you create some kind of environment to sit down and reflect on what did go well, what didn't go so well before we move on to the next thing and how do we do that?
Ewan (07:55):
Yeah, so that's interesting actually, that old adage of leave the thing you don't want to do to the end, leave that right to the end and all of a sudden the day's gone and I'll do it tomorrow and the day's gone again and I'll do it tomorrow. And you never get to these things. It's almost address those things first, get them done first, whether it's the positive or the negative. I mean there's positive feedback as well. It's not all about negative, but the negative certainly seems to impact people a lot more, doesn't it in terms of the people who have to give it and obviously the people who are receiving it, which is fair. And things like training around or techniques around constructive criticism or active listening. Are these things important? That listening side of things is obviously just as important as being able to deliver the feedback.
Natalie (08:39):
Absolutely. Managers are quick to maybe judge why something didn't happen, but maybe when they ask the right question to find out the series of events or what happened, actually their perception might be different and it might be an issue somewhere else in the chain rather than with the employee that was dealing with it, for example. So yeah, active listening in a variety. And again, is active listening something that someone just knows or does that have to be taught and trained?
Ewan (09:08):
Yeah, it's interesting, and this goes back again to something we've talked about in previous episodes around creating managers who are not managers creating that. I think we referred to,
Natalie (09:20):
Didn't we, to accidental managers,
Ewan (09:23):
Accidental. You
Natalie (09:24):
Can change and they can flourish absolutely, but maybe just being really good at what they do and then promoted tears of team on you go crack on you, then you're like, oh, I just know the job. You know what I'm doing, isn't it? So it's thinking about all these different things in order to then foster that culture of good and bad feedback
Ewan (09:44):
And actually making it a more regular thing. I think normalizing it is really important, isn't it? So it's not a case of well leave it all to the end of year appraisal, we'll address it then it just builds and builds and builds. And to be honest, if you're leaving it to an end of year appraisal, it's probably too late anyway if it's negative feedback, if it's something constructive feedback that needs to happen. So I suppose trying to get that in a regular process where you're regularly feeding back to your team, whether that's daily or weekly or even monthly, is that quite useful? Is that quite helpful to try and break down those? Just that picture building,
Natalie (10:20):
It's where we need to go, it's where we need to get to. Absolutely. There's nothing worse than maybe if you think of it yourself as well, if you've done a task six weeks ago and then let's regroup and see how it went, memories fade. You tell me it can't be that bad. You didn't address it at that particular time. So trying to, how do you and your day-to-day as a manager, how do you, and as a business owner and a leader, how do you create that space? But it just has to be something that actually, yeah, you think about, but it just comes naturally. And you also take feedback as well. We've got an appraisal, but certainly we're having lots of requests for 360 feedback. So not everybody has great self-awareness and that's understandable. That's okay. Or two in it sometimes to see what we really are person.
(11:08):
So getting that feedback from above, below and to the sides is powerful and the more people you hear it from, the more you kind of have to believe. I remember delivering these sessions, these sessions and people were laughing, crying, all emotions and like, oh my God, is that me did not realize that was me. But without being cheesy, feedback is a gift and it's good because then a manager can get proper perception of them and then move on and try and adjust, take the feedback or put some kind of plan in place and take that as well, take the good things with improvements.
Ewan (11:40):
Oh absolutely. And I think that's the thing that a lot of people maybe build it up as feedback is just a negative thing. It's the end result of right, well something bad has to happen here. But a lot of it is about learning and helping develop. And I think if you create that culture as we talked about at the start where feedback is a regular thing, then actually it starts to create a foster that culture where it doesn't have to be negative, it can be about learning and growing together and you work through some of the challenges because if there are no challenges then I would say there's probably something going wrong as well. If everybody's working together harmoniously and nobody's challenging and there's no issues, then it's probably not right either. I mean let's face it, if there's no challenges then nobody's asking questions, nobody's saying there could be a different way. And again, we talked with joy about diversity inclusion. If everybody agrees with everybody around the table and the board is all in agreement, then boring. That's a bit boring. It's
Natalie (12:36):
Bit boring as well, isn't it as well? But if you think about even culturally we're not great shouting about our own things. If you think about if an employee in a business was to get a really good email or call from a client, how many of us send it on? How celebrate it? We don't. And if you look at, you go to a restaurant, you have a really good meal, why do we not leave good reviews? We normally try and we're quick to jump on and do the bad. Why do we not give as good as well? And then is it wrong that an employee assumes everything and maybe it's not. Is it wrong that an employee or a manager assumes that everything's going okay because they've not been told otherwise Good news, no news is good news. Is that right? Is that the way that we should be working?
Ewan (13:30):
I think you're right. And on both sides we generally focus quite a lot on the feedback we get, whether it's a Google review or we get quite often we'll get staff, sorry, feedback into our chief exec or whoever and we will share that across. We've got, we use trickle, we've interviewed Paul before and we'll share that across the board and that's really viable for other people to see the messages that we're putting out there that they are recognized by customers. Nothing better than a customer feedback that says it was a great service, but likewise, we take the feedback that we get and any negative feedback we'll try and share that to because absolutely it's about learning to grow and not about, well this is good and this is bad, and if it's bad then you're out. It is about, well, how can we help each other and how can we grow together CSP as part of that feedback then it is really important as suppose to be quite specific, isn't it? It's important to make sure that you don't go around the houses with your feedback if you've got something to say, like you say in a positive way, but be specific about what you're feedback.
Natalie (14:38):
Yeah, it is hard for any gray areas if you like and it could go really wrong if you're delivering it and you've not really got any feedback. We hear it all the time, employees are one step ahead these days, so they're like, oh really? Tell me when. And the manager, and this is maybe some of the employees or they're actually quite intrigued and they will act on it, but how do they know what they need to do if they don't know what the issue is? So they might know the theme, but what is the actual, take me back to what client you're talking about taking back about what specific example, what should I have done in that situation? But maybe not always giving them the answer, but letting them go away and find a nice solution as well is quite a good method and great in terms of platform, yes, with the workplace and being able to deliver fast feedback, do you have any means and methods in order to do that other than picking up the phone, which is ideal or meetings, but what else do you have? And visually we've seen a lot of kudos stuff about these days. Certainly the system that we work with as well has kudos. So you can see the community and see jump in and you can see all of the good and whatever feedback anyone wants to deliver all on a wall, which is good.
Ewan (15:56):
Yeah, I mean that's good. I think the creation of things like safe spaces for people to be open and honest, I think that's quite important, isn't it? I don't know how that works. Does that, can you talk us through what that might look like?
Natalie (16:10):
That safe space could be your 360 feedback method normally anonymous or is it just a get together with no, nobody being defensive, but that whole peer to peer feedback in terms of if a department's crashing or what's going on the outside looking in as well and maybe giving some tips and techniques or just that kind of peer to peer. There's individual feedback, there's department feedback, there's organizational feedback, there's external externals. Internal feedback is a whole magnitude of things, isn't it? I think it's good to where if feedback lands well that people say thanks a lot for that. That was actually great. I really needed that. I was so far in it they couldn't see it myself or thanks very much for your honest answer. I know it must've been hard to approach me to tell me that. So it's having that whole, but it could be groups, it could be 360 feedback, it could be online, it could be some kind of platform. What is it? It could come from bottom up for example, focus groups, et cetera. But it's important with the feedback that we're also looking at solutions as well, isn't it?
Ewan (17:25):
And I guess because I've always tried to do this and it's interesting, this maybe comes with experience and perhaps not. Some people are maybe just good at this. It's trying to remove the emotion from it to a certain degree is to say, look, here's the honest feedback, this is it, and we'll try and make it as clear as possible and to try and take that emotion out because again, it's about helping people grow so they don't need bluff and lots of chatting around the discussion. They want to get to the point and I think that really helps people to make an action plan as opposed to make a plan to say, right, well I recognize hands up, there's an issue or that's great. How can we help the rest of the business to do the good work that you're doing? I think it's quite important that you try and remove the emotional connection with that. I know that's not easy and it's a very easy thing for me to say, but it's not that easy is it?
Natalie (18:17):
No. Particularly say for example, you've been working on a project, someone's been working on a project and they've put their absolute heart and soul into it, then they may be quite defensive. But it's good for our managers to know their team because the style of feedback will have to be tweaked for everybody as well. Good. The feedback different to me, someone might be particularly defensive as being defensive, a sign of caring or is it a sign of not giving a toss? It can be either passion, it can be passion rather than not giving just standing their ground. It can actually be put their heart and soul into it and they genuinely disagree so much to think about.
Ewan (18:57):
I think you touched on a really important point there as a manager, knowing your team, knowing your people and knowing how they'll receive the feedback, really understanding the individuals that you have in the team. And I appreciate some people can have big teams absolutely get that, but that's the role of a manager is to really get to grips with their own team members and understand how best to deliver that. Isn't it? Because you're right, everybody's individual and everybody will take it differently.
Natalie (19:23):
And sometimes just being direct and straight to the point. Some people need that, some people need a wee bit of going around the houses to get there. Some people, everybody needs something different when it comes to feedback. And a manager's really good skill will be identifying each person in the team and finding out how feedback lands well with them
Ewan (19:45):
I guess. So as part of that, the follow-up or the feedback, the ongoing follow-up is such an important thing, isn't it, that you deliver that feedback and then there's some kind of, well what are we going to do about it? There's a kind of ongoing loop of feedback that makes it a bit more, as we said at the start, a bit more normal
Natalie (20:04):
And is it reward? What does that look like as well for some people, I mean everyone's at work for different purposes and remember some people need that feedback. Yeah, they've got their salary, they've got everything else, and during the day what drives them is good feedback or any kind of feedback. There aren't certain individuals. And again, knowing your team who is driven by feedback and do you meet their needs and who is not that bothered by actually needs the feedback as well. But I think in today's world it's fast paced, we're moving, moving, moving. We go from one task to the next and we need to take some time in between tasking B to sit down and to go through because then that will create the future and that will create much better processes, working smarter, doing everything that we need to do because otherwise it probably doesn't happen, will never move on as well. Steven Bartlett is great for this. He always talked about every week they would have a meeting every single week on how we improve even if something's going good, but still how do we get better? And that's only through feedback.
Ewan (21:18):
Yeah, that's a really good point actually because we'll have that regular, we have daily catch-ups, but at the end of the week it's that we talk about how's the week gone, what's success, what hasn't worked? And that's the only way you can move forward. It is trying to identify where there are opportunities
Natalie (21:37):
And you might think something's went great, but other people might have other insights and ideas as well and how it can get even better or yeah, it's this whole culture piece, we keep talking about it. It's such a big culture plays in many forms, but let's add feedback into the mix as well as if people don't have enough to think about.
Ewan (21:56):
Absolutely.
Natalie (21:57):
Absolutely. And we want it externally. We want it externally. We want customers and clients to tell us what we're good and what we're not. But are we doing it internally as well would be my question.
Ewan (22:10):
Yes, absolutely. But I'm just thinking more and more about the fact that being a manager is such a, it's such, it's all about people. I mean you can put your processes in place, you can get the things in place, but really understanding your people is the crux of all this because, and don't get me wrong, you need the right feedback process. You need the right paperwork in place. Totally get that. But being a good manager, we've talked about this in all the different topics, it always comes back to people, how can I get the most from these people? How can I encourage them, how can I inspire them and how do I do it individually? I think just the discussion we've had today around feedback, I think it really highlights that just how important it is to be a good people person in terms of being good in management
Natalie (22:57):
And on the diversity. We're all different. We've all got our own styles. Let's not change that. And for me, when we're delivering training like this, it's still for me, it's that important. Be your genuine self, be your genuine self. When you are managing and leading, obviously this is what the perfect manager looks like. Does that exist? Be your genuine self because sometimes if we start fostering this fast feedback culture, we need to be careful that it doesn't then become forced.
Ewan (23:33):
Yeah,
Natalie (23:34):
Reading some articles about everything being too nice. You cannot win. I keep getting too nice, but I get it. People want to know, that's great. I've got this, but what can I still do better? I know it was good, but how did I get it? Great.
Ewan (23:50):
How do you think we've got to that point? You're absolutely right. There's definitely not research, but there's discussion out there around the fact that it's just too nice sometimes people are not willing to challenge. And I suppose that's what I meant at the start is that how have we got to this point where feedback is so difficult for people? Is it that nobody wants to offend, nobody wants to challenge. Because ultimately we do some work for a lot of businesses around their board as well and boardrooms. Well, it's not personal, it should never be personal. It is a place of challenge because that's how businesses succeed and grow and develop. And I guess we're in that situation where, as you pointed out, sometimes people just try to be too nice and it's not about being nice or nasty. It's about clear, honest, good feedback to help the business. I think it comes back to the point that we're here to try and help this business develop and grow in the best way it can. Now that's aligned to your values as an organization, whatever you're trying to achieve, but there will be competing ideas and competing approaches that need to be heard. And I suppose that not wanting to accept challenge or hear challenges is probably defeating the purpose of that, isn't it?
Natalie (25:06):
Yeah. And could you imagine if it was just a room and everyone nodded and agreed and that's not going to help any particular business not going to grow.
Ewan (25:16):
Exactly. And I guess the question is, is that organization where everybody thinks, oh, everybody's friends here, everybody agrees. Is that organization actually not performing as well as others? And I would argue,
Natalie (25:28):
Have you seen many of these meetings? I'm just laughing, so I'm thinking, oh God, I wonder how that meeting would play out if everybody just sat and went. Yes, but that's joy. That's the joy of it. Absolutely. That is absolutely the joy of it all.
Ewan (25:42):
Yeah, I remember doing some leadership training years ago and that was exactly, you had to find some, you had to challenge somebody in the room and it was difficult at the start, but actually you started to understand, look, it's getting over that mindset that this is personal. Let's not, we're all professionals, we're all here to do a job and actually, okay, that's maybe at a board level or whatever, but actually this is about how do we positively move the organization forward and to do that, like you mentioned, we're quite happy to accept the feedback from customers external feedback. So it's important we get that internal as well. Well listen, that was great. Thank you again, Natalie. A really interesting topic and I think there there's lots in that there's so many different avenues in terms of personality and how you deliver feedback. Training actually is really important and the sort of training that's required to make sure that people get that feedback. And then I guess the follow-up, making sure that there's a follow-up on the feedback so that things do move forward. There's no value in giving somebody feedback if nothing ever happens off the back of it. So thank you Veeva, and I look forward to catching up next week.
Natalie (26:52):
See you next week. Thanks everyone for listening today. On the note of feedback, please subscribe and leave us a little review. That would be super. And tune in next week.