The link between Feedback and Employee Engagement
October 9th, 2008 | Published in Measuring Performance
Tim Wright’s article Why Feedback Matters to Employee Engagement talks about how successful feedback increases communication in the organisation and helps employees to feel involved.
I would agree, and add that, for Feedback to be really effective:
- The content needs to be right i.e. what are we asking and what exactly is the feedback telling us
- The way it’s positioned is cricital, i.e. it’s not just another thing that HR want us to do, but something that is going to be takent notice of will make change happen
The bigger message from individual or group feedback is that you are valued as an employee and that the organisation cares about talking to you and listening to you.
Of course, don’t do what some people (and organisations) do and scupper that great message by asking for feedback and then
1. Disagreeing with it (”yes, but there’s an reason why I/we do it like that..”)
2. Listening but not hearing (”thanks for the feedback”, then nothing apparently changes)
3. Using the feedback as a stick to beat people up with, or
4. Only hearing and acting on the negative stuff - positive feedback is just as important..we can always do more of the good stuff!
