Performance Feedback

Performance Management | Business

​Once managers have identified and evaluated their employees’ key competencies, managers and employees should exchange feedback on a continuous basis.

​During this process, managers are responsible for providing constructive, honest and relevant feedback. Correspondingly, employees are encouraged to use their supervisors’ feedback to improve their performance. [1]

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Guidelines for Feedback Exchange

A study by the SHRM Foundation (2004) suggests that feedback exchanges should adhere to the following guidelines:

• Managers and employees should provide timely and constructive feedback in private;
• Both managers and employees should consider ways to improve their performance;
• All parties should specify positive and negative behaviours;
• All parties should focus on tasks and objectives, not on personal characteristics; and
• All parties should collaborate on training and development initiatives. [2]

Managers and employees must engage in a two-way communication process, and must accept mutual responsibility for delivering feedback. Furthermore, managers and employees are encouraged to follow-up about their current performance, and to request for suggestions to improve their productivity. [3]

Constructive Feedback Exchange between Employees and Managers

3.1. Employee Engagement

According to recent studies, managers avoid feedback in order to prevent disagreements with their employees over contradictory evaluation results.

In order to mitigate animosity during feedback exchanges, managers may involve employees in the feedback exchange process, as this would encourage accountability and acceptance amongst their staff. Employees should be engaged in frequent and constructive dialogue about their performance, which may remind managers about the productive tasks and results that they have achieved.
 
3.2. Creating Performance Statements

Managers may allow employees to create performance statements, which include important results or accomplishments at the end of each performance evaluation period. Managers may review these accomplishments with their employees before including them in formal appraisals, which may be used to facilitate employee promotion. This process would reduce discrepancies between the manager’s and the employee’s views of their employee’s contributions.
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Employees’ performance statements may include the following details:

• Description of the employee’s internal and external environment;
• Specific activities that allowed the employee to achieve results; and
• How the employee’s accomplishments benefitted their division or organisation. [4]​

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references

[1] Pulakos, E.D. (2004). Performance Management. VA, USA: SHRM Foundation. pp.7-8
[2] Pulakos, E.D. (2004). Performance Management. VA, USA: SHRM Foundation. pp.7-8
[3] QVARTZ. (2016). Performance Management. Oslo, Norway: Qvartz. pp.12-13
[4] Pulakos, E.D. (2004). Performance Management. VA, USA: SHRM Foundation. pp.8-9