Motivating employees with positive feedback
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Motivating employees with positive feedback
In conversations with your team, and when training line managers, use these tips to make sure performance feedback helps increase employee motivation levels.
1. Be transparent. Make sure people are clear about what excellence in their role looks like - as opposed to acceptable performance - and what they need to do to move up. They need to see which skills are premium at the next level, particularly at transitional stages such as moving from operational
to strategic leadership roles.
2. Use internal feedback. Even in the best employee/manager relationships, direct feedback lacks the weight of colleague opinion. Ask respondents for strengths that have most impact on this person's contribution. What development areas could make the biggest difference?
3. Use external feedback. Assessment centers and psychometric inventories can deliver feedback that's perceived to be objective. An independent third party's feedback is objective and for difficult messages, it avoids embarrassment and offers privacy. Such companies typically offer benchmarking data to help assess the quality of your people against other organizations.
4. And now...do something! Feedback should never be given in terms of "passing or failing" or it will quickly become discredited. Research shows that if nothing is done with an assessment's results, performance will dip. Solutions must be put in place with sustained managerial support. Short-term
fixes, like courses, deliver improvements, but to be sustained they need to be applied to the job.
5. Create an opportunity-rich environment. Organizations are often unimaginative about who might perform projects, so think laterally about how teams could be deployed. Assign projects beyond the usual suspects and give people something new to stretch them within their current role, but protect
them from failure with regular coaching meetings.
Source: "How to discuss performance positively and provide useful feedback" by Lucy McGee, director at global HR consultancy, DDI. Strategic HR Review Vol. 5, Issue 1, Nov/Dec 2005
Blogged on 11:20 PM by Upay
|
~~~
