Giving Feedback? Don’t Make These Mistakes

by Kylee Stone Nov 3,2016
Engagedly
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with Srikant Chellappa, CEO

Regular employee feedback is vital. It becomes easier for employees to improve themselves and to align their goals to the company values when they are given regular feedback.

Not everyone realizes how feedback affects employee performance. Sometimes, employers ignore employee feedback and prioritize other business tasks. Though it may seem like a small thing, it might affect organizational growth over a period of time.

But simply giving feedback does not fix the problem. It’s important that managers and leaders alike know what kind of feedback to give. Bad feedback can have even worse consequences than no feedback,

Here are 4 feedback mistakes you should avoid.

1. Making Feedback Personal

Most managers make this mistake during feedback, though it might be totally unintentional at times. Despite your personal opinion, it is important to focus on your employees’ work. Basing feedback on your personal relations with your employee leads to biased feedback and undermines the process of giving feedback.

2. Giving Feedback Only During The Time Of Crisis

It is the basic nature of a human being to only act when they have a problem. Considering the fact that managers are only human, this also happens when giving feedback. In some organizations, feedback is given only when there is a problem. Not only does this lead to employees panicking during crisis, but also gives an idea that their performance is fine otherwise.

Also Read : 6 Rules for giving excellent employee feedback

3. Only Focusing On The Negatives

When giving feedback to an employee, only focusing on the negatives can be extremely demoralizing. Good feedback involves a mix of negative and positive comments. Most employees are self-aware and tend to be aware when their performance is not up to the mark. Balance the negative with the positive.

4. Being Verbally Abusive

Feedback is a way for employees to understand where they stand and how they can improve themselves. Therefore, it is important to be polite and respectful during the process. Using abusive language or making inappropriate comments is a complete no-no. Despite the enormity of the problem, remember to stay calm and deal with it in a matured fashion.

Also Read: 7 Rules For Giving Negative Feedback

Good feedback can play a big role in improving employee performance. Giving good feedback might seem hard at first, but with practice, managers can eventually become better at it. Just make sure that you keep these four mistakes in mind and consciously avoid making them and you are good to go.


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Kylee Stone

Kylee Stone supports the professional services team as a CX intern and psychology SME. She leverages her innate creativity with extensive background in psychology to support client experience and organizational functions. Kylee is completing her master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational psychology at the University of Missouri Science and Technology emphasizing in Applied workplace psychology and Statistical Methods.

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