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Feedback is often overlooked. Yet several studies tend to show that constructive feedback without judgment, based solely on facts, from the manager to the teams, can have significant positive repercussions.
An essential part of working life, feedback (also called employee feedback) is a communication process through which a manager shares information with their teams or with an individual employee about their recent performance, their behavior or their impact at work.
To reach a conclusion and analyze it correctly, management relies on its own observations, on those of customers and on certain data collected, which make it possible to identify potential areas for improvement.
A study by Harvard Business Review thus explains that 72% of employees believe they would be more productive at work if they regularly received feedback on the way they work.
Unfortunately, this is all too rarely the case. In fact, fewer than 50% of employees say they don't receive enough feedback and observations from their managers.
There are three main types of professional feedback. Feedback can be positive… or negative.
As the name suggests, positive feedback aims to highlight collective or individual performance within a team or a company.
For example, you can underline the essential role the marketing team played in organizing and running the last trade show you attended, or simply congratulate a team member on their presentation.
Pointing out negatives so people can move forward is one thing, but highlighting positives is another. It helps build confidence and strengthen team cohesion overall.
Developmental feedback is neither positive nor negative. It aims to give the team or individual concerned everything they need to deliver the best of what can be achieved. It is feedback whose goal is improvement.
For example, as a manager, you may feel that the overall organization isn't optimal, which leads to delays in project management. You can then offer support with prioritizing tasks!
Corrective feedback aims to put your team or one of your employees back on track. If you observe that something isn't going right, the manager's role is to say so, for example to avoid any sense of favoritism.
An employee who arrives late every day, or meetings that are never prepared, can be good starting points for management to give corrective feedback.
The goal of feedback is to give teams or employees a constructive assessment that helps them understand what needs to be put in place to improve and become more effective. In short, to understand the efforts needed to grow within the company.
Feedback is an essential element within a company, enabling teams to grow and develop. Identifying areas for improvement and working on them helps maintain a work environment that is both positive and productive.
When feedback is positive, it highlights the work done and the changes made over the past few weeks or months. It is also a good way to show that you stay informed of absolutely everything that happens within your organization, and that while issues are raised and voiced when a problem arises, the opposite is just as true.
There are several different methods for giving good feedback. Here, we will focus on just two of them.
FEEDA is an acronym for Facts, Emotions, Evaluation, Desire and Agreement. It is a constructive, structured approach that lets you give your teams complete feedback:
This first step consists of describing the facts objectively, without passing judgment (whether positive or negative). The idea is to focus only on verifiable, factual data. For example:
This second step consists of analyzing the facts stated. As a manager, you can share your emotions about what you have just highlighted. For example:
The purpose of the evaluation phase is to highlight the impact of the facts on the company or the team. The idea is not to generalize, but to focus on the concrete consequences that a given behavior or decision has on your team's life.
If someone arrives late every day, this may suggest favoritism or overly lax management, and others may also decide to arrive 15 to 30 minutes after the scheduled time. To avoid this, it is best to make it clear quickly that lateness has consequences for meetings, schedules and team cohesion.
This phase consists of suggesting ways forward and offering solutions to get things back to normal. Let's take the example of lateness again. To keep meetings from starting too late and to make sure the schedules set at the start of the week are followed, make sure everyone arrives on time.
Beyond your intentions as a manager, you also need the agreement of the teams or people concerned for everything to get back on track. This is a step of dialogue and discussion, even though it is essential to remember that, as a manager, you have the final say on the decision to be made.
DESC, for Describe, Express, Specify and Consequences, is another feedback method often used by management to get a message or an expectation across.
As with the FEEDA method, the DESC method begins with a description phase. Here too, you need to describe the situation or your employee's behavior, focusing on the facts and only the facts.
In this second step, you can then describe your emotions and how you feel about the situation in question. As always, avoid blaming or accusing; simply state how you feel.
In this third step, you need to specify to the other person what you expect from them in the future. These requests must be concrete and, of course, achievable!
In this final step, you can explain the consequences (whether positive or negative) of the situation observed or of the person's behavior, as well as the repercussions their actions could have if your requests are ultimately not met.
Overall, the FEEDA method is a little more complete than the DESC method, because of its extra step: evaluation.
This step allows everyone to have and understand the context around the request and the impact that what is being put in place can have on the life of the company.
Finally, the FEEDA method is often preferred for general, team-wide feedback, while the DESC method is generally used to address a specific behavior or problem.
A word of caution, though. While giving feedback is essential, you need to keep in mind that it's possible to get it wrong. Here is a list of some of the main pitfalls to avoid so that your feedback strategy is as effective as possible.
In French management culture, and even in society in general, positive feedback isn't really the norm. In fact, feedback is mostly negative or corrective. Yet it would be a mistake never to highlight the things that are being done, and done well.
Highlighting individual or collective successes means recognizing the efforts made and the value of your employees. It also shows them that management sees everything, whether positive or negative, and that nothing is left to chance within the company.
Be careful not to overdo it, however. As a general rule, a ratio of 2 to 3 pieces of positive feedback for every piece of corrective feedback is often considered right, even though it varies from person to person. Feel free to adapt it based on your own observations and experience.
This is the “+, -, +” technique, namely positive feedback, followed by corrective feedback, ending again on a positive point. While the intention is commendable, HR experts tend to recommend one point per piece of feedback rather than several.
The human brain is known to sometimes filter information, keeping only what suits it. With sandwich feedback, the employee you are talking to may remember only the last positive point and overlook the areas for improvement you suggested!
The manager's role is to state the facts and draw conclusions from them. It is not to reprimand or make value judgments.
So, rather than pointing out that an employee struggles to manage their time, it is better to let them know and suggest ways to improve, such as a one- or two-hour training session or dedicated tools that will let them automate certain tasks they are less comfortable with, helping them focus on what matters most.
Corrective feedback does not mean your teams will change completely in the blink of an eye.
Operational and structural changes often take time. Don't hesitate to schedule progress check-ins, once a month or every two months, to get the views of the people concerned on the feedback given and the changes observed (whether positive or negative).
Some managers tend to think that certain things will sort themselves out. Yet some studies suggest that 8 out of 10 employees need to know what they are doing well and/or badly.
And that is precisely the manager's role. Without falling into micromanagement and excessive monitoring, you need to know how to give guidance, suggest areas for improvement and offer congratulations when necessary, rather than doing nothing and saying nothing.
Regular feedback in the workplace is essential! Knowing how to deliver it is an equally important skill.
Employees even ask for this type of feedback: the overwhelming majority believe it would make them far more effective in their day-to-day tasks.
As a manager, it is therefore your role to share your observations, based on facts (not assumptions), in order to support your teams and help them grow in their work.
If you don't feel comfortable or legitimate enough, don't hesitate to ask your own managers, who will also give you their feedback, for training on the subject and some coaching sessions, so you can grow and be able to support your teams as well as possible.
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