How to give feedback in a remote world blog
Learning how to give feedback to your colleagues is a difficult. What is the most precise way to give feedback? How do I balance sensitivity and directness? How can I promote an engaging conversation that will leave my friend feeling inspired and positive?
A remote working environment could increase the challenges. Language or other subtle signals which are easily interpreted on the ground may be harder to perceive remotely. And so, when it comes to offering constructive feedback, whether positive or otherwise, lines get crossed and the person who is listening might not be in the right condition to be able to comprehend the things you are saying.
Feedback, despite its pitfalls and challenges it is an essential part of teamwork. You can't simply hope that your team magically closes the gaps in those issues that need improvement. Neither is your team able to carry on its efforts for a long time without the support of its leaders and motivation.
So, in this article we'll discuss some best practices that can help improve your feedback with your colleagues. So, let's get started.
Feedback constructively
Think about the delivery method you prefer.
With all the modes of communication at your disposal be sure to select wisely. It is a good idea to inquire regularly newly recruited team members (or existing team members) what they would prefer to communicate, and what they would like to hear from them in feedback.
While your workplace may standardize regular reviews, feedback could happen at any point and you'll want to ensure the team members are aware and at ease with the feedback. That might mean turning off the camera or sending out a thoughtful email or scheduling more frequent 1:1s depending on their comfort-level and goals within the organization.
Create a safe environment
If you work in a real office There are plenty of ways to create a positive impression through your environment. It is possible to invite your colleagues to coffee, and talk about the emotions they experienced during a big client meeting that didn't go well and then head to a conference room for intense discussion, or simply stop them in the hallway to give them a quick hugs. In a distant world is it difficult to pick the ideal location for what you'd like to talk about. Instead, you'll have to set up psychologically safety signals.
It could also mean the time of your meeting is in a place where people don't encounter any external distractions or pressures, dressing for the event (a casual appearance goes quite a ways to making people feel relaxed), or even proposing the possibility of a phone call or camera shut-off to give people a break from the screen. A voice-only meeting also scales down the anxiety factor and encourages the active listening of both parties. Which leads us to our next topic.
Listen (but don't pry!)
In a workforce that is distributed, where communication patterns are constantly evolving and boundaries between life and work are more transparent, active listening builds confidence and trust. Active listening gives you situational knowledge of what your coworkers have been experiencing outside of work, and the factors that affect the performance of your team members. It gives you the opportunity to improve feedback delivery, understand what's not working as well as how you can create the best working environment for the colleagues.
Start with the good rather than the bad
It's been proven for a long time that a compliment sandwich -- where critical feedback is sandwiched between two positives is an efficient method of delivering difficult information. But, positive feedback has gained a sense of urgency nowadays. The majority of people are under stress on many personal fronts (like family, health, social, existential, and despite your best efforts, likely professional) and would greatly get positive reinforcement.
In the midst of all these competing life stressors comes what psychologists called the negativity bias that can be described as the tendency to focus and focus on negative feedback rather than positive feedback. This means that employers have to be extra vigilant in promoting positive feedback over negative. However critical the comments may be, the best thing to do is start from a place of respect and empathy as well as acknowledge the work your team members are putting into this challenging time.
Be specific and actionable with your feedback
To help counter negativity bias, it's best to keep your feedback specific, useful insights, not general statements about confidence, attitude, work ethic or skills for conflict resolution that could easily be misinterpreted or unhelpful.
Good feedback isn't just a performance review, it's also a chance to grow and setting goals. Feedback that is most beneficial comes provided when you have a clear purpose and goal in mind, and can easily communicate to the employee what they should work on in order to help them get there.
Feedback can be tied to action and impact how their thinking directly led to a profit, or the way the lack of communication caused another worker being forced to do certain duties and what could be better handled next time.
Prioritize your feedback to address the most critical points
Instead of storing the plethora of comments or compliments to unload over during a meeting, think about the most important feedback you can provide to issues that will have the biggest impact when it is needed.
Review the most important takeaways
At the end of the meeting, you should ask for them to discuss the most important points. You can either think about ways that they might overcome the gaps in their efficiency and/or grow further in their role (and the ways that you could be able to support them) or request them to give a summary of the feedback meeting if they feel confident enough to do so. The goal is to make sure you're both aligned and you're able to ensure that information is delivered in the right way.
Follow up
In the weeks or months following your feedback session, check in with them to see how they're doing. This is an occasion to build trust. Also, ensure they're capable of balancing the responsibilities they have to take on, and reinforce constructive feedback.
Tips for video collaboration, as well as feedback
Use video to record presentations to provide comments
Record post-mortem thoughts, and the group's feedback
Questions on how to respond
What are some positive feedback examples?
Example of positive feedback: "Sarah has done an amazing job of taking unwanted jobs and creating efficient tools for us to use. We'd love to see her continue to increase her expertise through tackling new assignments and imparting her knowledge and skills through presentations and various other tools." How do you write Peer feedback?
Couch constructive feedback and provide positive feedback. Your feedback should be practical and concrete, as well as tied to a specific purpose. Give team members the opportunity to provide feedback. Offer empathy, and support where it is needed. What is an example of constructive feedback?
Feedback constructive "Phil has managed an workload of 10% more than the year before with enthusiasm, running his programs efficiently while maintaining timelines. One challenge I'd suggest to him during the next year is to increase his level of communication with his stakeholders so that he can maintain a level of the transparency throughout the project's cycle in order to keep on top of any roadblocks."