How to Create an Effective Feedback Culture

I think everyone would agree that they want a work environment that is engaging. Senior leaders often tell us that they want to create a work environment that is engaging for its employees, and where everyone feels as if their contributions are valued. What is often missed is that just the same as customer feedback is one of the keys to building a business, constructive, progressive feedback within an organization is just as crucial.

Many companies see feedback as something that happens primarily during the time-consuming annual performance appraisal process. And while performance appraisals, ratings, and 1:1 discussions using consistent forms and worksheets are intended to let employees know how they are doing, the fact is that this process generally falls short of meeting your leaders’ needs for proper evaluation of employees’ performance and progress.

Ideally, every organization would have ongoing discussions that would help to create a feedback rich culture as part of its value system. Having such a culture promotes an environment that encourages employees at all levels to be focused on doing the key things well.

If you haven’t yet developed a plan for building a company culture that endorses feedback, consider these findings:

• A culture rich in feedback can be the single most important lever that any company employs to impact its performance
• Feedback is the least expensive and most effective lever for influencing behavior
• Feedback-rich cultures are a primary reason successful businesses are able to retain key people, create a positive work environment and motivate employees to exceed performance targets

Feedback is most effective in environments where people trust each other, feedback is fair, and when people are held accountable for their actions.

So how do you build a feedback rich culture?

1. Trust

   When an employee trusts someone else’s perspective, they are more likely to change behavior because of the feedback.  If trust does not exist, constructive feedback could result in negative results and decrease performance or motivation for that individual.

   Trust between employees and managers can be increased by providing employees training on assertiveness, along with an opportunity to provide a self-assessment on their performance.  In addition, managers can increase trust with employees by minimizing rater bias and providing feedback based on concrete examples, rather than broad generalizations of behavior. (Levy & Williams)

   When people provide feedback, they are at the mercy of many of the same factors that influence ratings on performance reviews.  Providing truthful feedback is sometimes difficult because many things can get in the way:

   • People may not want to deal with the discomfort and conflict that occurs when delivering negative feedback
   • Feedback/ rater bias (halo effect, personality bias, similarity bias)

   Studies show that people who have a high Agreeableness (cooperative, trustful and sympathetic in nature) and a high Conscientiousness (focused on excellence, very careful and quite thorough) provide good feedback. (Levy, Williams)  Help managers and employees to understand the implications of this can help those who may not be as strong in these areas adapt their style to provide most effective feedback to others.

2. Fairness

   In order for feedback to be perceived as fair, employees must know that feedback might be coming. In addition, the feedback provided must be based on clear evidence, disclosing examples if necessary. Interactive training on coaching and feedback techniques is imperative for both managers and employees to understand how to provide meaningful and effective feedback to peers, subordinates and managers – and take feedback given to them to heart.

   Target Corporation has created a strong feedback culture at corporate headquarters. Employees receive feedback from managers, peers, and subordinates. Target has a strong culture of development. Sometimes feedback is not easy to take, but team members at Target understand it is a part of learning how to be ‘your best’.

3. Accountability

   People are more likely to use feedback and improve performance when they are held accountable for results after feedback has been provided. For example, this has been proven to be true with multi-rater assessments. When managers are required to meet with their employees about their feedback, they are more likely to use the feedback to improve performance (Levy & Williams). Likewise, when employees receive feedback and must report on their progress, they are more likely to make changes. Many companies have applied accountability pressures on managers to improve coaching.