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How meaningful feedback changes your employee’s experience

February 6, 2023 thehrobserver-hrobserver

By The HR Observer Staff

Arnab Ghosh was an account executive who led a junior team with an approach to solve problems rather than delving into them.

“It was when every team was assigned new joiners that I could see a distinct difference in how much the nature and quality of feedback impacted the team member’s performance,” he explained.

On seeing poor performance, Ghosh helped one of his junior colleagues by providing constructive feedback that came after understanding what is causing the issues. He said he rectified the situation through working with other colleagues to ensure the employees’ engagement and learning development.

“The difference between the teams [performance] was the management style. We did not blame or point fingers, and addressed issues. The other team did not bother with finding or addressing issues. It was quite simply “do or die”,” he explained.

Ghosh, like others, sees that the way employees work has changed over the years. Two years after the pandemic, employees are more concerned with how they are treated which overall affects the financial state of the business.

According to a survey by Willis Towers Watson, a  global advisory, broking and solutions company, 37% of organisations said that their employee experience drives positive business value. Compared to their peers, employees are: more engaged, more likely to stay, more likely to believe their voice matters, feel capable to deliver their work and feel more recognised for their contribution to the business realising its strategy. Their satisfaction through recognition, assistance and investment in their talent leads to positive business impact.

“My experience was its best to give problem-focused feedback at all times, for example one of my team members had good knowledge of programming but poor aesthetic ability, so we put him on a photoshop course and he eventually became one of our best techies,” Kishore Dharmarajan running Seo Souq, a digital agency in Abu Dhabi.

Meaningful feedback is considered constructive feedback that allows for growth and evolution in the right direction. It is feedback that encourages learning and making a positive improvement in performances. Most importantly it is specific, actionable, understandable and not too theoretical.

“Meaningful feedback in my opinion is the single most important aspect of employee growth,” said Ayshwarya Chari,  Cofounder of 1115 Inc.

Chari said that giving and receiving feedback needs to be a positive, constructive exercise broken down into specific factual feedback, action points for growth and a review date.

“In a start up consultancy such as ours, growth is almost inevitable,” added Chari. “That being said, it comes from a commitment that we as founders make to our employees’ growth that involves 1 to 1 mentorship with one of the founders, training programs and hands on experience including in areas that are not role specific,” she added.

“By implementing a talent retention program based on employment from within and fostering an environment of meritocracy with no bias against gender, nationality or favoritism of any sort,” said Ola Sinno, Founder of Spill The Bean Café in Sustainable City.

“Setting a precedent of in-house promotions will encourage the team to strive and do their best,” she added, explaining further that it is vital to not  micro-manage and ensure proper delegation, whilst giving the employee enough space to show leadership will also provide them with room for growth.

“When employees feel that their efforts don’t go unnoticed, they are keen to go the extra mile as they know they are valued, appreciated and that their efforts always get rewarded,” she explained further.

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