How do you boost team performance in a company?
Well, you will need to put the activities and actions of the team under scope and figure out if some issues or obstacles are stopping the team from optimal performance.
But, that’s not where the process ends. Once you have the insights, it’s your responsibility to guide the team and help them figure out the areas that require significant improvement.
In other words, you will have to effectively provide employee feedback to ensure increased team performance.
So, the real question you must ask is — “How to provide effective feedback to boost team performance?” In this post, we will learn how effective feedback impacts team performance and the factors one should consider when delivering the feedback.
Let’s dive right into the content, shall we?
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What is effective feedback?
Before we discuss the intricacies of effective feedback, let’s understand what “effective feedback” really means.
Effective feedback is essentially the kind of feedback that is provided to employees in order to ensure they have valuable and collective information about their performance and ways to boost it.
Now, effective feedback can be both positive and negative in nature as it focuses on the different situations and behaviors showcased by the employees in the subject.
Regardless of positive or negative feedback, the idea behind providing effective employee feedback is to ensure perpetual and continuous growth and improvement of the team’s performance through constructive guidance.
For managers reading this post, you should approach effective feedback as a tool to impact employees and improve their ability to learn and understand the process.
The entire quest to boost team performance will push managers to understand that every employee is different and has varied perspectives.
Thus, providing feedback in a way that makes sense to the employees is crucial.
Managers will have to ensure that effective feedback is wrapped with kindness and that the whole process pushes the company toward creating a positive and growth-conducive work environment.
This will also result in better employee-company relationships which will reflect a more engaged workforce working under dedicated and well-respected leaders. In other words, the more feedback employees receive, the more valued they feel in the company.
What are the key factors of effective feedback?
What should you keep in mind when delivering effective employee feedback? The effective feedback you share should be —
1. Specific
You will have to deliver concrete and specific feedback to the employees.
The feedback should have relevance with regard to performance that can be measured for a specific goal.
Effective feedback must be coupled with the employees’ current progress and should be presented in an easy-to-understand format.
The best way to go about this is to figure out the performance goals and then map the feedback with them accordingly.
2. Timely
The timing of the feedback is everything.
If you intend to provide feedback for a project that has just finished, you want effective feedback to be passed on to employees while the project is still fresh in their minds.
Organizations that have a dedicated employee dashboard make the most of timely effective feedback and achieve better learning opportunities for employees.
3. Appropriate
Appropriateness is key here. You don’t want the effective or constructive feedback to be presented in a rude manner. It should always be presented in a positive frame of mind and tactfully.
Also, it should be presented only when it is absolutely necessary.
To maintain appropriateness, you should ensure professionalism. If the effective feedback is negative, it is important that you remain calm and present yourself as respectful and helpful.
4. Behavior-focused
As we mentioned earlier, each employee has a different personality and is unique that way. Therefore, effective feedback should not aim at rectifying the personalities.
Instead, the focus should be on the specific behavior that is causing the performance issues.
We suggest you refrain from making comments that are critical or aimed at the employee’s personality. Remember, employees can change their behavior through the actionable feedback, not their personality.
5. Proactive
A proactive approach to seeking data and insights and providing effective feedback is critical to successful feedback submission.
So managers trying to boost the performance of their teams should track the events and situations about which the feedback will be prepared.
Managers should not be waiting for days or weeks before accruing the data for the effective feedback-sharing session.
6. Descriptive
The feedback matters a lot to employee performance. Therefore, managers or employees extending effective feedback should refrain from using vague or broad language.
Instead, they should adopt descriptive feedback or a descriptive manner of sharing information which will facilitate better understanding and learning of the specific employee feedback or insights.
Not only that but being descriptive will encourage employees to have a discussion with you regarding ways to improve performance.
7. Non-judgemental
Passing on judgment will not help employees improve their performance. This is because it might make them feel judged and as a result, they will turn defensive toward the effective feedback.
To make the feedback make an impact, you should watch your choice of words when having a conversation.
So, make sure you provide constructive criticism and that the feedback is rooted in facts and observable behavior.
8. Recurring
Providing feedback erratically will not help. You will have to ensure that feedback is shared according to a schedule.
Such scheduled performance reviews will be beneficial as employees will have adequate time to implement ongoing feedback and be ready for upcoming insights.
Moreover, recurring feedback will help develop a more engaged team and happier workforce that will also perform better.
9. Data-driven
What are the factors that you base the effective feedback on? What are the insights that you use to develop effective feedback?
These are important questions because employees who receive feedback expect you to have a sound foundation for the performance review or actionable feedback.
You can ensure this by incorporating quantitative measures related to employee performance. As you base the review on data, we suggest you provide charts and graphs since these visuals help with better understanding.
10. Tied to action plan
Lastly, managers must connect the performance feedback session with an action plan that employees can use to correct their behavior and performance.
Employees must know what they should do to get on the right path and increase their productivity and efficiency.
Upon receiving feedback that you share along with an action plan, you can always check on the employee and open a dialogue about the effectiveness of the action plan.
How effective feedback can benefit your team performance?
How does an effective feedback system impact a team? Here are the key benefits that effective employee feedback provides to boost team performance.
Let’s discuss them in detail —
1. Boost employee engagement
As a manager or team leader, you should not miss out on an opportunity for employee engagement.
Providing effective focused feedback is a major opportunity where you not only help team members learn about their performance but also provide them an opportunity to speak their minds.
In this way, employees will feel engaged in the organization and render themselves a crucial part of the company. Thus, effective feedback sharing can result in an increase in employee engagement.
2. Feedback motivates employees
A motivated workforce is a major competitive advantage in today’s market. But how does effective feedback motivate employees? Well, effective feedback can be filled with insights that are motivational for the customers.
Since we mentioned that effective feedback should be recurring, providing back-to-back positive feedback will certainly motivate employees. At the same time, the way or manner in which you extend the feedback also matters.
If provided positively, effective feedback can motivate your team members.
3. Boosts employee retention
Employees, regardless of the company, profile, or department, want to achieve quick growth in their careers. One of the best ways to grow in a company or career is by being subject to effective feedback.
As you provide adequate and regular effective feedback, your team members will respect your quest to improve their performance.
The respect will turn into the decision to stay with the company for a longer time and achieve more career growth and personal development.
4. Cuilds stronger relationships
Members of a team should feel connected when working on a project.
As we mentioned earlier, effective employee feedback can target employee behavior and provide action to improve it.
Since such employee feedback is provided to every member of the team, the exercise results in more inclusiveness among the team members, which generally results in the development of stronger relationships.
Giving feedback is an excellent way to bring team members closer when working on a critical project.
5. Ensures better decision-making
Team performance is highly dependent on decisions made by each of its members. How can you ensure better decision-making within the team?
Effective feedback is known to introduce team members to the decisions they made and the results achieved.
Such mapping of decisions and results provides employees better understanding of their actions and aware them of the inefficiency of their decision-making. In this way, effective feedback can boost employees’ ability to make sound decisions.
6. Enhances employee recognition
Besides career growth, employees want to feel appreciated and recognized in their organization. Team leaders and managers can use the opportunity to develop effective feedback to figure out the key impact of each team member and show appreciation.
We highly recommend managers develop an employee recognition program and couple it with performance reviews or constructive feedback sessions. After all, employees must know if their work is doing any good for the company.
7. Fosters innovation
What does it take to create a culture of innovation in an organization?
Well, you need team members who understand the importance of innovation in terms of market domination.
With concepts like feedback effectiveness, team leaders and managers have the opportunity to provide feedback that contributes to the innovation wing of the company.
8. Promotes employee loyalty
Employees who realize that their company is trying to improve them as professionals will find it easier to stay loyal. Employee loyalty is quite difficult to achieve.
But providing timely effective feedback in a respectful manner definitely gives a strong message across the workforce about your intent to boost employee performance.
9. Improve work environment
As we mentioned earlier, companies that provide behavior-focused employee feedback will find it easier to rectify problems caused by unproductive employee behaviors.
This is one of the reasons why we suggest creating not only quantitative feedback but also qualitative feedback.
If employees figure out the impact of their bad behavior on the overall work environment, they will realize their mistakes and push toward better workplace behavior.
10. Increased team productivity
Effective employee feedback is also a way to boost team productivity especially when the feedback focuses on the workflow of each and every team member.
If team leaders and managers produce insightful and in-depth effective feedback, they will come across obstacles in the workflow that are keeping the team members from achieving higher productivity and efficiency.
Explaining the solution to overcome the obstacles will eventually help the team perform better.
11. Create stronger teams
Employees that have to work in a team need special attention as a team is as good as its members.
To create stronger teams, managers can provide feedback to members about how their actions and behavior are impacting the team’s performance and how they contribute to the team’s success.
Once they realize that they are a crucial part of the team, they will feel more connected to other members of the team and work together to achieve the set targets.
12. Decreases overhead costs
Business owners reading the post will agree that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to find and cultivate the right talent in a company. You will have to invest in employee training and give employees time to learn the intricacies of the job.
If employees leave your company after the entire exercise, it will be counterproductive. At the same time, if you provide employees with timely and adequate feedback for course correction, they will ensure better results and help save on overhead costs.
13. Boosts sales
The better your employees, the higher the revenue generated. Now, that doesn’t mean you need to hire the best employees in the market.
High revenue can also be achieved by trusting your existing workforce and making them understand that abiding by the performance review will result in better performance and results.
You can boost sales significantly by providing employees with precise insights about where they lack and how they can improve.
Final thoughts
Employees need feedback, and that should be constructive too. The feedback helps them assess their performance and come up with ways to improve it. But managers need to make the most of this feedback.
They will have to provide the feedback in a way that makes the most impact on the employees. Such effective feedback will only result in more engaged employees, happier customers, and an ever-growing business organization.
Also, you’ll have to provide effective feedback that is actionable, clear and focused.
Specifically, we helped you understand various factors you should take into account when providing effective feedback and the impact effective feedback can have on your teams performance.
We hope that you are now well-acquainted with the concept of effective feedback and are ready to implement it in your organization.
Did you find this post helpful? Stay tuned as we share more informative posts.