Strategic HR Technology Investment: A Comprehensive Checklist for Global HR Teams
Previously, managers would meet their employees once a year for their performance reviews. Or vice versa where the employees meet their managers once a year or half-yearly. But this was not effective in improving employee performance. As a manager, you are most likely to forget what your employee did throughout the year, and your reviews may be clouded by recency bias. Additionally, your employees will not get to know what they did right or what they did wrong. To avoid this, organizations have shifted from traditional performance reviews to a continuous feedback approach.
Continuous feedback is the process of sharing regular feedback with employees. Regular and timely feedback helps in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of employees and provides them with the opportunity to improve their performance. This systematic approach creates feedback culture in the organization.
The continuous feedback model can help an organization improve performance in tandem with engagement.
Straight away, one of the biggest improvements that can be seen with a culture of continuous feedback is an increase in engagement. There are plenty of statistics that point towards employees being unhappy with the amount of feedback they are receiving. And when they do receive meaningful feedback, they do agree that it helps them work better. Have a gander at a few statistics with regards to feedback:
We all would like to be valued at work. Meaningful and continuous feedback fulfills that desire. Employees believe the work they are doing aligns with the organization or, they will ensure their work aligns with the organization’s end goals and objectives.
Feedback at a regular interval isn’t something that is just reserved for a certain breed of employees. Constructive feedback is for everyone. It can help struggling employees improve, it can help good employees become better and it might even help struggling employees figure out they are suited for different job roles.
The idea behind this type of feedback is to consistently suggest improvements and refinements that help the employee. They need not always have to be criticisms or praise. They just need to offer the employee food for thought as they continue working on their project. And with the work that we do always being dynamic, there’s always something to share in terms of feedback. Mind you, this principle cannot be applied to all kinds of work. For example, automatic machine work has already been refined to the highest level possible.
When employees receive insufficient feedback, what happens? They leave. A lack of constructive feedback is reason enough for employees to change job. It is also important to note the difference between feedback and constructive and meaningful feedback. Feedback can mean anything, even noise. On the other hand, constructive feedback not only takes into account the person receiving the feedback, but also their skills and competency and the work they are doing.
When there’s consistent feedback to rely on, there’s always room for improvement. There’s also the desire to improve not only upon performance but also productivity. Continuous feedback motivates us in more ways than one. Sometimes, feedback is the push most of us need to try a new approach or to keep going on what is a difficult path. Feedback eases the way because then employees are secure in the knowledge that their manager is paying attention to their work and is invested in what they do.
Do you which factor can have a marked impact on performance reviews? Documented feedback. It helps in identifying trajectory of performance and acts as a reference. That is, it provides a representation of an employee’s work over a period of time. It is possible to see where an employee faltered, or where they improved or alternatively, where they stagnated, thereby needing a new challenge. Regular feedback makes the performance review process a whole lot easier. Even if you were to only have an annual review, continuous feedback makes it easy to make performance-related decisions.
Continuous feedback performance management is revolutionizing the business world. It provides a holistic approach to keeping tabs on employee productivity and offers actionable insights to overcome challenges. We hope this article has helped you learn about the importance of continuous feedback. Tell us in the comments, how your organization is utilizing Continuous feedback performance management in the current business environment.
Ans. Continuous feedback helps in the following way:
Ans. The following methods can be used in providing continuous feedback:
Ans. Continuous feedback helps employees in the following ways:
