How to Give Feedback to Employees for Growth and Success

Effective feedback helps employees understand their strengths and areas for improvement, enhancing performance and job satisfaction. In this article, we’ll discuss how to give feedback to employees.

This article will explore key strategies for delivering timely, specific, and constructive feedback. Learn how to balance positive and negative comments, set development goals, and use feedback to inspire and motivate your team.

Whether you want to improve performance or foster a supportive work environment, these insights will help you master the art of feedback.

Characteristics and principles of effective feedback

Learning how to provide feedback and what makes feedback effective can make or break your performance and retention.

Timely and specific feedback

Feedback is most effective when provided promptly. Timely feedback ensures it is relevant and impactful, enabling quicker performance improvements. By offering feedback as soon as possible, you demonstrate your commitment to your employees’ development, which can enhance their motivation and drive to excel.

Another key is to provide specific, actionable feedback rather than vague comments. Supplement with clear, detailed examples to make the feedback actionable and understandable.

Balanced and constructive approach

The success of constructive criticism hinges on its delivery. The same message can discourage workers, trigger them to browse job ads, or help boost their performance and loyalty.

As a result, when giving performance feedback, it’s essential to strike the right balance between positive and negative feedback. Doing this will help motivate your team members while addressing improvement areas (key for crafting development plans). Balancing the two will promote a growth mindset by showing workers their growth areas and how they can evolve.

Feedback that focuses on behavior, not personality

Constructive feedback should focus on specific behaviors or actions rather than personal traits. Personality traits are challenging to change and can be positive or negative. For example, a timid employee might not contribute much to group discussions but is less likely to cause workplace conflicts.

To encourage this employee to contribute more, focus on their behavior, and create an action plan. They can share their opinions during one-on-one meetings, submit them in written form, or take a course to build confidence in speaking in group settings.

Here are two examples to illustrate this point:

Feedback that encourages growth

Feedback should motivate and inspire employees. Celebrating achievements when giving achievement is one way to approach this.

Growth-focused employees often overlook their milestones or goals, rushing on to the next challenge. Recognizing their accomplishments helps them see how their efforts contribute to the business’s success.

Make it a habit to celebrate workers outside of performance meetings, as well. Team meetings and company newsletters are excellent venues for highlighting outstanding achievements.

Constructive criticism fosters growth when it’s specific and clear. Providing concrete examples helps employees understand and remember what to do differently in similar future situations. Many companies are adopting a feedforward approach, emphasizing more frequent, flexible, and interactive conversations.

Feedback should also inform development goals. Set goals directly based on specific feedback points to ensure they are relevant and actionable.

Techniques for giving effective feedback

Delivering feedback effectively can greatly influence how the recipients react to it and ensure they embrace the feedback for future growth. Here are some key techniques:

The SBI (Situation-Behavior-Impact) model

The SBI model helps provide clear, objective, and actionable feedback. It anchors the sometimes lofty concept of feedback into something tangible, making it easier to understand. When the recipient finds themselves in a similar situation in the future, they’ll likely remember the feedback and choose a different behavior that has a more positive impact.

Steps of the SBI model:

1. Situation: Describe the specific situation where the behavior occurred, including the time and place
2. Behavior: Objectively describe what the employee did or did not do
3. Impact: Explain the consequences of the action (or lack thereof) on the team or results

Here are some tips for using the SBI model:

• Know the full context of the situation to ensure the feedback is objective
• Be clear and specific in your descriptions
• Balance constructive criticism with positive feedback to keep motivation high
• Check in with the employee to ensure they understand and follow the feedback

The 360-degree feedback approach

360-degree feedback collects feedback from all levels of the organization, including upper management, peers, subordinates, and sometimes clients and stakeholders.

This approach provides a comprehensive view of an employee’s performance and competencies.

Set-up guides

• How to Implement a 360-Degree Performance Appraisal in 15 Steps
• 360 Feedback Questions to Measure and Improve Employee Performance

Benefits of 360-degree feedback include:

• Providing a well-rounded picture of the employee’s performance
• Highlighting strengths and areas for improvement from multiple perspectives
• Encouraging a culture of open communication and continuous improvement

However, this method can be logistically complex and time-consuming, especially if attempting to implement it manually.

The “feedback sandwich” method

The feedback sandwich method involves starting the feedback with something positive, then delivering constructive feedback, and ending with something positive.

Use this method with caution since it can put people on edge: every time they receive praise, they’ll expect it will be followed by something negative.

Receivers might also perceive the feedback as dishonest, viewing the two positive comments as fabricated for the sake of adding positivity around negative feedback. If the recipient views the positive comments as disingenuous, they will lose their intended positive impact.

However, you can do a few things to ensure this method is effective and not perceived as insincere. For example, ensure that the positive comments are specific to make feedback feel genuine and not just a formality to cushion the criticism.

The best ways to give performance feedback

Regular performance reviews

Scheduled performance reviews ensure regular feedback delivery, not just when conflicts arise. Additionally, they allow organizations to track performance improvement over time and identify areas where workers need additional support.

Before any type of review, your team members should know:

• When the reviews will happen
• What they can expect
• Why the reviews are important (their purpose)

Follow these basic steps for conducting productive performance reviews:

• Carefully prepare for the evaluation
• Conduct the reviews
• Interpret the results and discuss them with each worker
• Take necessary measures, e.g., creating development plans or performance improvement plans (PIPs)

One-on-one meetings

When conducted well, regular one-on-one feedback sessions strengthen the manager-worker relationship and contribute to a better employee experience.

These meetings also help managers understand how they can best support each employee. They help provide timely and relevant feedback so that workers can improve faster. Additionally, they keep workers on track for their goals and can help course correct if needed.

Follow these basic steps for giving feedback in one-on-one meetings:

• Prepare by covering key topics and gathering relevant data (e.g., notes from previous meetings, goals, development action plans)
• Choose a setting where you can talk without interruptions
• Review previous goals, discuss performance, set new goals, and define clear action items

Regular performance check-ins

Regular performance check-ins are consistent feedback sessions that prevent last-minute pressure and build a culture of ongoing improvement.

These sessions are an alternative to or can complement traditional performance reviews. Some companies have switched to shorter performance check-ins instead of annual or two mid-year performance reviews because of the benefits of regular feedback, primarily that it’s timely and engages workers.

Follow these basic steps for conducting productive performance check-ins:

• Define a clear agenda that you share with your team members in advance
• Cover recent challenges and achievements and goal progress
• Provide specific, data-backed constructive criticism and clear action items for improvement
• Engage in active listening and encouraging employee input—prepare open-ended questions to inspire a motivating conversation

Informal and real-time feedback

Real-time feedback allows for immediate corrections, creating a culture of trust. Workers know that if something isn’t ideal, they’ll learn about it instantly.

This type of feedback can also help with learning and development since it’s easier to point out what skills they need to improve or what knowledge they need to acquire. It is clearer and easier to understand, lacking the risks of not remembering and misunderstanding that can come from referring to past situations.

You can integrate informal feedback into daily interactions in several ways:

• Daily stand-up meetings
• Casual conversations at the coffee machine
• Email or work chats
• Team meetings
• During mentoring
• Workshops or trainings

Best practices for managing feedback conversations with employees

Applying best practices will ensure you get the most value possible from your feedback.

Encourage two-way communication

• Ask for employee input during the conversation
• Avoid making employees feel like you are lecturing them
• Use active listening to create a collaborative feedback process

Reframe the conversation if needed

• If the employee becomes defensive, steer the discussion back to constructive points
• Emphasize the goal of mutual improvement

Create a draft action plan and offer support

• Outline specific steps for improvement
• Schedule a check-in meeting to finalize the action plan together
• Offer resources, training, or mentorship to help the employee succeed
• Ensure improvement is seen as a joint effort between the manager and the employee

Following these best practices ensures that feedback conversations are productive, supportive, and focused on mutual growth.

Leverage Deel Engage for effective feedback

Deel Engage simplifies feedback processes, offering a modern, innovative platform that enables HR teams to merge performance, learning, and development:

• Customize your feedback process with multiple raters, qualitative and quantitative questions, anonymous feedback, and more
• Collect feedback and analyze data on competencies, goal progress, cultural values, etc.
• Showcase what performance means at different levels of career progression with our effective career management module
• Automate feedback cycles based on specific groups (department, teams, etc.), hire dates, and more Development and training integration
• Assign training courses to address skills gaps for all employees in your organization
• Generate training courses at lightning speed with AI Deel HR, our truly global HRIS solution, is always included for free

Request a demo to learn more about how you can build high-performance teams that continuously learn and grow.