Feedback that cuts through the noise

When you’re at work, it feels like there is nothing scarier than getting called into the boss’s office. Whether it’s a performance review or notes on a recent project, getting feedback can be tough. For many supervisors, it’s just as hard to give this feedback as it is for employees to receive, but why?

A survey by Harvard Business Review found that 44% of managers think giving negative feedback is stressful, and 21% reported that they tend to avoid it entirely.

These conversations may be difficult, especially for those new to management roles, but they are a vital aspect of a working office. Concise and effective feedback improves an employee’s understanding of their work, while also strengthening the relationship between them and their superior. 

Why it matters: As a credit manager, you may be accustomed to being on the receiving end of all kinds of criticism from clients, for better or for worse. But how do we navigate critiques within the workplace without hurting morale?

Give clear and concise feedback

It’s important to remember how helpful feedback can be for employees. Brittany Yvon, CBA, CICP, credit manager at OMG Inc. (Agawam, MA), says effective feedback often means understanding what motivates your team. 

“Be clear and concise in the feedback for both positive and negative feedback,” Yvon said. “When giving positive feedback, I like to highlight the big picture of how this helped our department goals as well as helping the company.”

Even if you’re adept at giving employees evaluations on their work, it may feel challenging to dole out the more critical points of your feedback without straining your relationship. Yvon finds that it is easiest to focus her evaluations on the behavior, not the person. “If you focus on the person, it may come across as an attack,” Yvon said. “Nobody wants to feel as if their manager [or] supervisor is attacking them.”

Address weaknesses as a team

The key to giving consistent, strong feedback is developing an open and collaborative team environment, said Kevin Chandler, CCE, director of financial services at Zachry Group (San Antonio, TX).“We work to get things done together,” Chandler said. “The results shine on all of us together.”

Chandler stresses the importance of the manager seeing themselves as part of the team, rather than assuming a more authoritative role. With this dynamic, evaluations are reframed from focusing on an employee’s mistakes or weaknesses to areas to improve and develop together. 

“There’s a big difference between telling somebody, ‘Well, here’s a weakness that you need to work on,’ and ‘Hey, here’s something that we need to develop within you, and let’s do that together,’” Chandler explained.

Reframing weaker areas of an employee’s performance as growth opportunities encourages them to focus on improvement rather than dwelling on mistakes. This approach to feedback doesn’t merely make an employee aware of a certain weakness, it creates an open conversation on how a manager and an employee can work together to improve their work performance.

Open and direct communication is key to achieving this dynamic. A manager needs to understand that healthy communication within the office is equal parts speaking and listening.

A manager can give their staff feedback as a group, allowing employees to see how their own individual work contributed to a larger team effort. “They need that group recognition, so that they see the importance of their role in the company as a team,” said Amy Cook, CCE, credit manager at McNaughton-McKay Electric Company (Adrian, MI). “… With remote work and everything else, that mentality has just left the workplace in so many ways [because] you don’t see each other every single day.”

Understand unique working styles

Working in an office, you learn pretty quickly that not everyone has the same working habits. Receiving feedback is no different, each person has their own preferences for how often they receive feedback, whether it is positive or negative.

Some employees prefer to hear about their performance as often as possible while others prefer these conversations to be fewer and far between. “You can actually put somebody in an uncomfortable position by giving them too much feedback or not giving them correct feedback based off their personality,” said Kevin Stinner, CCE, CCRA, credit manager at J.R. Simplot Company (Loveland, CO). “And I think that a key metric for a manager is being able to feel out your employees and know how they respond to different things.”

By understanding their employees’ preferences, managers can determine a method of communicating their feedback that favors both parties.

The bottom line: For employees and managers alike, feedback is an opportunity to improve their working habits without losing sight of how their individual behaviors shape their company’s success as a whole.