Provide feedback

Formal performance appraisals should not be the only source of performance management within an organisation. Indeed, it is important to provide both formal and informal feedback to employees. It is good practice to give informal feedback first so that employees have an opportunity to adjust their performance and behaviour before beginning formal feedback. Providing feedback also occurs during the monitor phase of the performance management cycle. While employees implement their performance management plan, managers monitor their performance and provide feedback.

Feedback involves providing information to employees in order to reinforce good performance and indicate how and where poor performance should improve. Feedback should provide employees with information about:

• Results
• Events
• Critical incidents
• Significant behaviour

Feedback can be:

• Positive – what has been done well
• Constructive – how to do better
• Negative – what has been done badly

When providing feedback you should always provide a combination of positive, constructive and negative feedback – never provide negative feedback alone. Negative feedback should never be dwelt upon but instead perceived as an opportunity for learning and improvement. All feedback should be based on facts and evidence and never opinions.

While formal and informal feedback is essentially the same content, the difference lies in how it is delivered. Informal feedback should occur as and when required in the workplace – don’t wait for a formal feedback meeting to tell an employee when they have done well or where there is room for improvement. Informal feedback is usually verbal, face-to-face, and delivered in the workplace.

The following extract contains ten guidelines for providing effective feedback.

Guidelines on providing feedback

1. Build feedback into the job. To be effective, feedback should be built into the job or provided soon after the activity has taken place. 
2. Provide feedback on actual events. Feedback should be given on actual results or observed behaviour. It should be backed up by evidence. It should not be based on supposition about the reason for the behaviour. You should, for example, say: ‘We have received the following complaint from a customer that you have been rude, would you like to comment on this?’, rather than: ‘You tend to be aggressive.’
3. Describe, don’t judge. The feedback should be presented as a description of what has happened; it should not be accompanied by a judgement. If you start by saying: ‘I have been informed that you have been rude to one of our customers; we can’t tolerate that sort of behaviour,’ you will instantly create resistance and prejudice an opportunity to encourage improvement.
4. Refer to and define specific behaviours. Relate all your feedback to specific items of behaviour. Don’t indulge in transmitting general feelings or impressions. When commenting on someone’s work or behaviour define what you believe to be good work or effective behaviour with examples.
5. Emphasize the ‘how’ not the ‘what’. Focus attention more on how the task was tackled rather than on the result.
6. Ask questions. Ask questions rather than make statements: ‘Why do you think this happened?’; ‘On reflection is there any other way in which you think you could have handled the situation?’; ‘How do you think you should tackle this sort of situation in the future?’
7. Select key issues. There is a limit to how much criticism anyone can take. If you overdo it, the shutters will go up and you will get nowhere. Select key issues and restrict yourself to them.
8. Focus. It is a waste of time to concentrate on areas that the individual can do little or nothing about. Focus on aspects of performance the individual can improve.
9. Provide positive and constructive feedback. People are more likely to work positively at improving their performance and developing their skills if they feel empowered by the process. Provide feedback on the things that the individual did well in addition to areas for improvement. Focus on what can be done to improve rather than on criticism.
10. Ensure feedback leads to action. Feedback should indicate any actions required to develop performance or skills.

^{(Armstrong 2014, 102)}

Occasionally, employee performance or behaviour will fall below agreed standards. There is absolutely no point waiting until the end of the performance period to inform the employee of their poor performance – the sooner they know about it, the sooner you and the employee can take action to improve performance. Poor performance may include, but is not limited to:

• Apathy
• Laziness
• Not following directions
• Not completing work tasks
• Not meeting deadlines
• Completing tasks below standard
• Negative attitude
• Absenteeism
• Tardiness

One of the first things you should do when you identify underperformance is try to establish the cause of the underperformance. Oftentimes underperformance is caused by managers, systems, or processes rather than the employee – as the saying goes, there are no bad soldiers only bad officers. Some common reasons for underperformance may include:

• An employee doesn't know what is expected because goals and/or standards or workplace policies and consequences are not clear (or have not been set)
• Interpersonal differences
• There is a mismatch between an employee's capabilities and the job they are required to undertake, or the employee does not have the knowledge or skills to do the job expected of them
• An employee does not know whether they are doing a good job because there is no counselling or feedback on their performance
• Lack of personal motivation, low morale in the workplace and/or poor work environment
• Personal issues such as family stress, physical and/or mental health problems or problems with drugs or alcohol
• Cultural misunderstandings
• Workplace bullying

^{(Fair Work Ombudsman, 2015)}

Once you have established the reason for the underperformance, you can then take appropriate action which may include:

• Coaching 
• Mentoring 
• Further training
• Reassignment
• Counselling
• Re-establishing expectations

Often managers are nervous about dealing with underperformance because they worry that employees will react angrily. By following the steps below, managers can reduce the likelihood of employees reacting badly during difficult discussions.

• Keep in touch with the members of their team. If they see that managers are approachable and ready to listen they are more likely to come to you with their problems. It is far better to nip the problems in the bud, wherever possible, rather than waiting for them to become more entrenched or complicated.
• Get to know each individual in order to anticipate possible behaviour.
• Do not wait until a formal review meeting. They should have a quiet word at the first sign something is going wrong.
• If they have to hold a formal meeting, get the facts in advance – what happened, when and why?
• Plan the meeting on the basis of the facts and what they know about the individual. Define what they want to achieve.
• Set the right tone from the start of the meeting – adopt a calm, measured, deliberate but friendly approach.
• Begin the conversation by explaining the purpose and structure of the meeting, indicating to the individual what the issue is, using their knowledge of the situation and giving specific examples.
• Focus on the issue and not the person.
• Ask for an explanation. Ask unloaded questions to clarify the issues and explore them together.
• Listen to what the individual has to say – he or she may need to let off steam.
• Keep an open mind and don’t jump to conclusions.
• Acknowledge the individual’s position and any mitigating circumstances.
• If new evidence emerges, adjourn the meeting if this feels appropriate.
• Ask the employee for proposals to resolve the situation, discuss the options and if possible agree on action by the individual, the manager or jointly.
• If agreement cannot be reached, managers may have to define the way forward, with reasons – they are in charge!

^{(Armstrong 2014, 103)}

Watch

One of the strategies available to managers for improving performance is on-the-job coaching. Coaching can also be used as a reward for excellent performance. Coaching is a technique used to help individuals improve their skills and abilities. Coaching is designed to improve short term performance issues while also focusing on long term learning and development. As an element of performance management coaching may involve:

• Making people aware of their performance by asking questions about their behaviour.
• Ensuring that people know what is expected of them
• Ensuring people have the required skills and knowledge to complete a task
• Using everyday situations as learning opportunities
• Encouraging people to consider higher level organisational problems
• Asking open ended questions that facilitate action
• Helping people develop their own action plans
• Taking advantage of employees strengths
• Building rapport

In order to do these things, managers must have effective coaching skills such as listening, analysing, interviewing and questioning skills. In the extract on the following page, Armstrong describes the qualities of a good coach

• Establishes rapport
• Creates trust and respect
• Demonstrates effective communication skills
• Promotes self-awareness and self-knowledge
• Uses active listening and questioning techniques
• Assists goal development and setting
• Motivates
• Encourages alternative perspectives
• Assists in making sense of a situation
• Identifies significant patterns of thinking and behaving
• Provides an appropriate mix of challenge and support
• Facilitates depth of understanding
• Shows compassion
• Acts ethically
• Inspires curiosity
• Acts as a role model
• Values diversity and difference
• Promotes action and reflection

^{(Armstrong 2014, 165)}

A model commonly used in coaching is the GROW model which stands for:

• Goal – the goal of coaching expressed in specific, measurable terms.
• Reality – the reality of the current situation, and what needs to be improved
• Options – the possible options or solutions, as many as possible
• Will – or way forward, an action plan for achievement the goal of coaching

The following extract contains an example of the GROW model being used in a retail environment.

Goal

In practice, when managers start to coach, most of the role involves asking questions that will help the individuals work out for themselves what their goal is. To aid this process, a list of questions is provided, with the goal usually being one of the objectives or the performance criteria standard. Like the main objectives, all goals need to be SMART.

Reality

The second stage, ‘Reality’, examines the current situation and what the individual has been doing and achieving. To aid this process, managers collect together examples to use in the coaching process. In addition, the company’s guidance notes give a list of questions to ask to gain a perspective on the individuals’ views and understanding of various situations. Among the list of questions are:

• What is the situation at the moment?
• Who else is or could be involved?
• What is their perception of the situation?
• What would be happening/what would it look like if it were perfect?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, what is it like now? What improvement do you want?
• What are the barriers to moving from X out of 10 to Y out of 10?
• What is holding you back?
• What have you tried so far? What were the results?

Options

‘Options’, the third stage, attempts to encourage employees to come up with ideas on what they could do to achieve their objectives or reach the performance criteria standard. Again, a list of guidance questions is given to managers to help with the process, but this time there is an attempt to explore some of the more unconventional solutions that staff might have. The company stresses that the session should allow employees to think quite broadly and that managers should not criticize any ideas that emerge. Once employees run out of ideas, then managers provide their own.

Will

The final stage of the coaching process is to formulate an action plan, outlining what the individual is going to do. The plan, the company says, should be specific with clear deadlines. Once more, the company provides a number of questions to inform thinking, including: What are the next steps?

• Precisely when will you do them?
• What might get in the way?
• What support do you need?
• How and when will you get that support?
• What further help do you want from me?

In addition, managers need to identify possible obstacles and agree what can be done about them, as well as agreeing the support the individual will need and how it will be provided via coaching and training. Managers are advised to focus on the individual’s behaviour and what the individual needs to do differently, but are told that this should not relate to their personality. Nevertheless, it can mean focusing on small, manageable pieces of behavioural change. This stage could also involve explaining fully and specifically what the individual needs to do, while picking examples of when people did do well in the past can sometimes prove useful and can be built on. What is important at this stage, the company says, is involving the individual in developing the solution to make it more likely that they are committed to the action plan.

^{(Armstrong 2009, 170)}

Watch

Before you can give formal feedback or conduct a performance review you will need to document evidence of the employee’s performance. As we discussed earlier, monitoring performance is about collecting examples and samples of actual performance in the form of:

• Results
• Events
• Critical incidents
• Significant behaviour

This evidence may be in the form of:

• Documented observations
• Reports
• Written feedback from clients, customers, superiors or subordinates
• Performance data
• Examples of the employee’s work

It is important to obtain documentary evidence of employee performance so that it can be used in formal performance management sessions. This may involve developing feedback forms for relevant groups, keeping a diary, making copies of the employee’s work, collecting and analysing performance data, or generating reports. The methods you use to document performance will depend on your organisational policies and procedures. If no policies and procedures currently exist you should develop them in consultation with senior managers.

Once you have gathered and documented evidence of employee performance you will be able to arrange a formal, structured feedback session. This is also sometimes called the performance review. The formal feedback or performance review occurs at the review stage of the performance management cycle.

When providing formal feedback to employees, you should apply the same principles you learned about informal feedback at the beginning of this section. Those principles where:

• Ensure feedback leads to action. 
• Provide positive and constructive feedback
• Focus
• Select key issues 
• Ask questions
• Emphasize the ‘how’ not the ‘what’
• Refer to and define specific behaviours
• Describe, don’t judge
• Provide feedback on actual events
• Build feedback into the job

^{(Armstrong 2014, 102)}

The main difference between formal and informal feedback is the timeframe. Informal feedback should be given immediately or as soon as possible after a result, event, incident or behaviour occurs; however formal feedback usually takes place according to a predetermined schedule. Therefore certain steps need to be taken when giving formal feedback. These include:

Before the meeting

• Arrange for the performance management meeting to be held in a private place at a mutually agreeable time
• Clearly explain the purpose of the meeting to the employee
• Collect relevant documentation and evidence
• Think about what feedback you are going to give the employee

During the meeting

• Clearly explain the purpose, structure, and approximate duration of the meeting 
• Encourage the employee to assess their own performance first
• Reinforce good performance using specific examples and evidence
• Identify and analyse poor performance using specific examples and evidence
• Invite the employee to respond or explain their performance
• Ask the employee for suggestions to improve performance
• Explore potential solutions to poor performance
• Decide on a way forward

After the meeting

• Complete any required documentation and provide copies to the employee
• Carry out follow-up activities
• Schedule the next formal feedback session

This section of the module we have focused on providing feedback. In this section you have learned how to provide informal feedback, advise people of poor performance, and provide on-the-job coaching. You have also learned how to document performance and conduct formal structured feedback sessions.

Armstrong, Michael. 2014. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resources Management Practice. 13th ed. London, UK: Kogan Page.

Armstrong, Michael. 2014. Armstrong’s Handbook of Performance Management. London, UK: Kogan Page.

Dapper Dude. (2019). Making The Most Out Of Your Learning Opportunities. [Image of a road sign with ‘directions/destinations’ as Success, Growth, and Career Development, as the options]. https://dapperdude.co.uk/making-the-most-out-of-your-learning-opportunities/