There is an art to giving feedback to staff and if done well can build stronger relationships, personal growth and improvement of outcomes in the workplace. Feedback done badly can create a train smash resulting in a loss of morale, productivity and spike in recruitment costs. Want to know how to conduct a feedback session with your staff or colleagues to prevent it escalating to a grievance or breach of work health and safety regulation?
Here are eight key steps to building relationships in the workplace:
- Choose a private place to have the discussion and when both of you are calm
- State the purpose of the feedback and the benefit of the suggested action to the recipient of the feedback ie. ‘I am giving you feedback about x because I care about your success and that of the team’
- Describe what you have personally observed and perceptions
- Actively listen to the other person’s views by providing good eye contact and repeating what is said for clarification
- Jointly agree on action to be taken ‘What I would like you to do is follow the procedure outlined in the handbook for making purchases, by doing x and y’
- Clarify actions from the discussion - ‘Checking I have heard right… so you want x and y, am I correct? And what I want from you is x and y, are we both clear?’
- Write down agreed actions and ensure each person gets a copy
- Express appreciation and/or thanks for the feedback session.
It may be appropriate to make another time to meet to discuss progress on agreed actions. Developing good feedback mechanisms is vital to the health and wellbeing of staff and rewarding for individual personal growth.
If your staff would benefit from training on giving and receiving feedback contact OD Consulting Services for more information.