Best way to give feedback to employees?

[Celadon]

For those of you who are managers, what do you consider to be the best way to give ongoing feedback to your staff? By what method and how frequently?

 

There are annual reviews, of course, but I am thinking about corrective feedback, such as "I need you to complete your work on time. You are chronically late" and "I need you to be more careful when you do your work. There are a lot of errors."

 

I feel uneasy pointing out every little mistake someone is making as it happens, which would be daily. (I could easily do that, as I am very task-oriented, but I doubt it would go over well I don't currently have regular one-on-one meetings, just times when I touch base with people quickly, usually to instruct them on a specific project. I do have a regular staff meeting.

 

What have you found to be effective at your workplace? I would appreciate hearing about your experiences and what you've learned.

 

Thanks in advance...

[avman]

If their work is a chronic problem then I'd set up weekly one-on-one meetings and use them as coaching sessions to try to improve performance. It sounds like you have some staff members that need quite a bit of work. So regular weekly feedback may be necessary. You can bite off small chunks to try to improve on and give timely feedback at a set time. Then you won't appear to be nitpicking/micromanaging by commenting on their assignments daily.

[FathomFear]

What you're describing is micro-managing, which I generally try to avoid. I don't find it effective to constantly bombard someone with "FYI you did this wrong", "FYI you did that wrong". I've had better experience having less frequent communications (weekly, usually) and collecting my thoughts and giving an employee just one or two things to work on. Once I see that area improve I'll address something else. Some highly skilled people are able to take massive amounts of feedback and improve almost instantly, but most people don't work like that.

[Celadon]

Thank you both! It's really helpful to hear how others manage and what's worked for them and why.

 

So how long are these one-on-one meetings that you hold? Do you use it to develop your social relationship as well (meaning, do you shoot the breeze about personal stuff in these meetings, just to be friendly and help them feel comfortable, or is it strictly business)?

 

Many thanks, again.

[Anthropic]

I haven't managed anyone in a while, tried it, hated it, never touching management again, but I do have some thoughts on employee reviews.

 

First off, annual reviews? Utterly useless. Unless your tracking things throughout the year an annual review is mostly just blah-blah made up stuff. Seriously, who remembers what they were doing 10 months ago? 6 months ago? Heck, I have trouble remembering what I was doing 3 months ago (I've got the memory of a goldfish though so I'm probably the exception). I found quarterly reviews to be just about right, and then the annual review is just the quarterly reviews squashed together. This also reduces the stress of review time, where you spend a week just doing everybody's reviews and no actual work gets done.

 

I guess it depends on the environment you're in, but weekly one-on-ones I would consider micro-managing. Bi-weekly seemed like the sweet spot to me. I found a week isn't really enough time to hit any significant goals, again, depends how the environment is and how in need of guidance someone is.

 

The one-on-ones I had were 30min blocks, most of the time it wouldn't take that long. As for what we talked about in them, it depended on the person, some people just like to do their job and leave, some people want to know what they can improve so they can be promoted, some people like to tell you what you can improve, some people need to be told what to do so they don't get fired. I've found the longer you work with a team the shorter the one-on-ones get, it would be like, "You good?", "I'm good", high five, we'll stop wasting each other's time and get back to work now.

[avman]

So how long are these one-on-one meetings that you hold?

 

Mine were 30 minutes. That's about all a person can handle in something intense like this. Plus I couldn't really afford to do longer ones on a weekly basis or I'd burn up a whole day each week just doing these meetings.

 

Do you use it to develop your social relationship as well (meaning, do you shoot the breeze about personal stuff in these meetings, just to be friendly and help them feel comfortable, or is it strictly business)?

 

No, never personal stuff. Especially if you are having performance problems. A one-on-one is a business meeting to talk about status, performance, questions, etc. Of course it is a two way street. The employee must be able to comment on work assignments, offer suggestions, and ask questions too.

[jahur]

ive always gone by this quote "encouragement strengthens labour" in other words a good genuine pat on the back always does the trick! hope this may help....

[Celadon]

Good stuff. I want to make sure I'm not micro-managing, definitely. I think "inside" I have the urge to micro-manage, but on the "outside" I probably don't give enough direction.

 

I appreciate the help!