Never Underestimate The Influence Of Effective Feedback
Gone are the days where employees receive annual reviews — now, it's important to embrace regular feedback from managers, peers, your mentors, and leaders. According to a 2018 survey by Gartner, “Many organizations are working toward more frequent and agile goal-setting methods,” and 48% of organizations now set goals at least twice per year.
As humans, we evolve daily and adjust our personal goals and expectations. We don't change once a year, and feedback should follow the same cycle! Giving feedback is absolutely a craft that you can hone to maximize your impact. When you reflect carefully on intent, timing, and follow-through, your feedback can become a meaningful gift that inspires collective growth.
Check out three key strategies for providing equitable and effective feedback:
Create Intentional Space
Whenever we hear terms like “feedback” or “constructive criticism,” we tend to anticipate the worst. It conjures up the same feelings of being invited to the principal’s office—suddenly you’re a nervous kid again, sweating in your seat. But no employee should ever feel anxious or worried in their workplace. If you create the right environment for it, feedback doesn’t have to be a negative word.
Reframe your intent: It’s about partnership over critique.
Curate your language to emphasize positive intentions. Instead of framing feedback as “critique,” for example, use terms like “partnership” and “shared growth.” Feedback isn’t just about blaming someone for their individual mistakes, it’s an opportunity for employees to reflect on how they can better contribute to their teams. Additionally, make sure your reflections are future-oriented. Rather than reiterating an employee’s past failures, encourage them to think about how they can intervene now, or what they hope to achieve in the future.
Offer timely, ongoing feedback.
When you normalize consistent feedback in your workplace, employees will see it as an ongoing process, not a moment to be reprimanded. Consider building in team reflection time after completing every major project, or scheduling employee check-ins seasonally or monthly, rather than annually.
Feedback doesn’t have to be scheduled weeks in advance, either. In fact, we recommend providing timely feedback when it can make a direct impact to the person receiving it. Think of a time when you had a bad customer experience and chose not to say anything in the moment, yet complained long afterwards. By that time, there’s nothing to be gained. With that logic, give feedback when it matters so that people can quickly adjust their course.
Offer Clear & Honest Feedback
How? Be specific.
Many of us may hesitate to offer direct feedback at the expense of that person’s feelings. But when your resulting feedback is non-specific and indirect, this can be harmful to long-term career success. Research shows that women and other underrepresented minorities often receive vague feedback, which prevents them from building the skills needed to advance. If you still feel uncomfortable, use the SAID model to guide your feedback:
Specific: Describe the behavior/action you observe
Ask: Seek to understand their perspective
Impact: Describe the impact of these actions
Do: Agree on a course of action
Benevolent honesty
In the same vein, “sandwiching” and sugarcoating your feedback to be kind also hinders employee growth. Instead, practice benevolent honesty: psychologists define benevolent honesty as the ways communicators can “deliver negative information truthfully and directly, but also employ additional strategies to ensure that their words actually lead to long-term improvement.”
After you use the SAID model to provide clear, direct feedback on an employee’s performance and action steps, Inc.com recommends using a variation of the following statement: “I’m providing these comments because I have high expectations that I know you can reach.” Using benevolent honesty, ground your feedback as a message of transparency, trust, and long-term investment—which is far kinder than empty platitudes.
Follow Through With Avenues For Growth
After providing feedback, follow through with actionable steps and a timeline for that person to implement your advice. Agree upon a set of tangible goals: for example, if an employee wants to grow their skills in a specific work area, encourage them to enroll in workshops, trainings, or coursework. Direct them to register for conferences in their industry so that they can network and skill-share with like-minded peers. Better yet, provide them a project to help them build the muscle.
Additionally, create a realistic shared timeline for these goals, oriented towards both short and long term. Since feedback is an ongoing process, make time to check-in on an employee’s progress beyond their major performance evaluations, in monthly or quarterly 1on1s. Reflect together on past, present, and future growth: Did this person meet the goals you agreed upon since you last met? What did they learn in the process? What actions can you take to support them moving forward? Regular check-ins like these help you intervene organically in the “pivotal moments” of an employee’s trajectory, or the transformative moments of career advancement that ensure long-term success.
How can bias show up in feedback?
3 things to be conscious of when providing feedback are clarity, consistency, and two-way dialogue.
First, vague standards leave room for bias to take hold. For example, terms like “culture fit,” “like-ability,” “courtesy,” and “modesty” are not only abstract, they also potentially play into racial, gendered, and other social stereotypes on how employees should conduct themselves. Instead, clearly define your standards and ensure that they’re applied across the board.
Secondly, consistency in feedback is vital to upholding values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Ask yourself: are you giving some employees the benefit of the doubt over others? Are you as honest in your comments for employee A as you are with employee B? Don’t make assumptions about employees’ capacities for growth based on their circumstances (for example, if they’re mothers, fathers, or caregivers). Everyone deserves the opportunity to learn and develop through equitable feedback.
Finally, make sure that your feedback is a two-way street. Rather than simply dispensing advice onto another person, structure your 1on1s to be open dialogues in which employees can ask you questions. Additionally, be open to feedback yourself. While acknowledging power dynamics, ask your employees to reflect on your leadership and mentoring skills as well. Some strategies to do this outside of 1on1s include anonymous surveys, company-wide focus groups, and employee resource groups, where individuals can converse together on what they need to feel supported.
Here’s to the season of giving meaningful feedback! We hope the strategies provided will allow us all to embrace honesty and transparency when providing feedback.
ModelExpand is a diversity, equity and inclusion consulting firm focused on radically accelerating the presence of historically underrepresented people in the workforce. ModelExpand’s work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes and CultureAmp. Need support embedding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within your organization? Contact us below.
About the author:
ROHINI DUVVURI
Rohini started her journey in the corporate world in the Sales & Marketing function. After a year, she realized her calling was in the People organization. The fuel to pursue a career in the People organization was to reimagine the role of an HR Business Partner and help create an ecosystem that empowers her and others to take space and be comfortable in their own skin. Rohini accumulated 15+ yrs Global HR Business Partner experience in Silicon Valley.
