Question

How can a manager improve the type of feedback, make it more actionable, monitor its effect on employees and work environment? Include examples from your experience or observations.

How can employees give feedback to the boss or the consequences of not providing your boss with useful feedback?

Answer 1

Feedback means expressing our thoughts and experiences while working together. By feedbacks, one can celebrate the strengths as well as work on other feedback and learn and grow.

It is common in every organisation where manager gives feedback to subordinates, but this communication must be in the other direction as well. The employees must be given the opportunity to express their thoughts and give feedback to the manager. There are three types of feedback,

• Positive feedback
• Negative feedback
• Constructive feedback

Humans are always very keen to know all the positive things that people think about them. But it must be understood that one can always get mixed kinds of feedback. Positive feedback encourages to work forward. Negative feedback can be studied and worked upon and constructive feedbacks can help a person see what things can he/she do in a better way. One must make sure not to get suppressed by negative feedbacks.

A good manager should encourage his subordinates to give feedback. At the beginning maybe the employees may feel shy or scared to come forward, so one can try anonymous feedbacks in the starting.

A good manager should take all the types of feedback in a positive way and should work on them. A manager could improve the feedbacks by showing gratitude or appreciation towards the employees or by announcing accomplishments of employees and making the workplace more friendly. Managerial feedbacks are a good way to have a good working environment because managers, they directly influence the employees. Managers play a vital role in shaping the organisational culture, hence it helps if the managers to have a good relation with their employees. When you hear the feedback, the response must be a smile and a 'thank you, I will work on that'.

As per my observations and experience at my previous firm, let me give you few examples of feedbacks given to manager,

• 'Hello Sir, it is very good that you get so much excited about the new projects. But Sir, sometimes when you get a lot excited, you don't ask for any ideas from the team. It is possible that few others in the team may have better ideas on the matter.'
• 'I have always seen you having a big picture about any particular project. You think big, which is good, but sometimes you leave the smaller parts to be noticed. So if in the coming project you could see the entire picture including the smallest part, the project would be a great success.'

It can be difficult for employees to give feedback to their boss, as he is the most superior person and one can always have the doubt whether the boss would get offended by any feedback resulting into a problem. But the boss should always encourage employees to give honest feedbacks and should accept all the feedback with an open mind.

Not giving useful feedback can cause harm to the organisation.

• By healthy feedback system, labor turnover remains low.
• By not giving necessary feedback, a small problem can grow to a big issue affecting the whole working environment.
• Sometimes, it is necessary to have feedback, as it helps understand a way of working from other people's perspective.
• And that nobody's perfect, so it is always good to improve. Feedback gives us a platform to improve and grow.