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How To Provide Clear And Useful Feedback To Virtual Employees

by Jasha | Jul 29, 2020 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Home > Blog > How To Provide Clear And Useful Feedback To Virtual Employee
How To Provide Clear And Useful Feedback To Virtual Employees

Jul 29, 2020

A 2019 Gallup Poll found many employees felt their manager didn’t give them enough feedback, while others got little to no feedback. The poll showed that employees felt disengaged and it lowered their productivity.

This was pre-Covid and when face to face interactions took place.

A year later, add in the complexities of virtual employees working alone, feeling isolated and a perceived lack of managerial communication and support as people try to figure out how to navigate this new environment.

In the new world, communication is key and feedback becomes even more crucial in making your team feel connected and tied to a purpose. That’s why I’d like to share some useful tips on how you can provide good feedback to virtual employees.

Defining feedback in the workplace

It’s important to define feedback as it applies to the workplace – what it is and what it isn’t.

Feedback is information about someone’s work used as a basis for improvement.

Feedback isn’t just about pointing out someone’s weaknesses and asking why they aren’t performing well. It’s also about telling them what they’re doing well. Unfortunately, research shows that many managers focus too much on negatives, taking away from the process.

Providing feedback to staff in a virtual environment
With employees thrust into a virtual environment thanks to Covid, it’s important that managers stay in touch via different tools and keep providing feedback, positive and negative. There’s also nothing wrong with seeking feedback about your own performance as a manager. This kind of role modelling highlights your openness to changing behaviour and will likely have a positive impact on your employees’ receptiveness to the feedback you offer.

Don’t leave it to performance review time, as things might go wrong before then. Ask for and give feedback regularly to address any big issues that might come up.

Offer different tools for communication
The first step is for a manager to create a specific schedule for each employee so they can give and receive feedback on projects and how working from home is going for them.

There might be a temptation for companies to over-emphasise on productivity, especially working from home, where performance is measured against deadlines and client dollars, not employee wellbeing.

While the employee is beavering away on work, they might be feeling isolated, overworked or unsupported. By allocating time to a specific business task – providing feedback – employees can feel more connected to the team, their manager and the organisation. It’s a chance for employees and managers to raise their concerns and get direct information on performance.

Create a meeting specifically to provide feedback
When working from home, employees might struggle to get a hold of their manager because they don’t know which platform to use. So they might send an email, message on their company platform and even try to call or SMS.

The manager feels harassed and the employee feels annoyed because there isn’t a clear option available for them to communicate.

List a few different options and state clearly when and how they are to be used for different scenarios. For example, a complex client challenge is best communicated with the whole team via video conferencing which provides visual cues. If a team member is struggling to find a solution to a question, they can send an instant message to the right person, instead of their manager as a first point of call.

If one team member works late in the evening and others work early mornings, would video calls work or is email better?

Consider the options, ask members for input and then communicate it to the team. Prepare a document for a new worker who joins the team so they are clear on how they need to communicate.

Close the feedback loop
Research has found that when providing feedback, managers tend to focus more on pointing out and fixing their employee’s weaknesses. While this is better than no feedback at all, you need to give feedback on what the employee is doing well.

Constructive feedback is a combination of positive and negative feedback, it provides a complete picture which closes the feedback loop.

In a virtual environment, where body language cues and tone is minimised, providing clear and useful feedback ensures your employee works on the right projects, stays connected to the team and the organisation.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post, and found some useful tips on thinking about feedback in a virtual environment.

Check out my feedback course which teaches you how to offer and receive feedback to grow as individuals. It helps create a positive and open company culture. If you’d like more information, send me an email info@blackstonetraining.com.au or call 1300 742 029.

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