by Silva Payne

Created on: July 11, 2009

Everyone appreciates praise, and most people also appreciate being told if they are not quite hitting the mark. The importance of providing ongoing feedback for your employees is high, and can be used in several positive ways to enhance your workforce and improve your overall business.

When a job is repetitive, or requires only a low level of specialist skill, employees can become complacent and unmotivated. If the employee rarely or never receives any acknowledgement for the work they do, aside from their wages, they will start to care less about how they do their job. That is the point where accidents can happen, or when staff start to cost the company more than the salary outlay, by lost productivity or having to recruit new staff. A lack of ongoing feedback can create a "them and us" culture between shop floor and management which may suddenly flare up into strike action or resignations when the employees feel they are not appreciated. A management ideology that workers should be thankful for having the job in the first place does nothing to foster good working relationships and ultimately leads to the business not reaching its full potential, or failing completely.

Feedback should always be as balanced as possible. If you are going to tell an employee that they are not working fast enough, try and temper that news with some praise for something that they are doing well. No one will stay long in a company that only ever criticises its employees. Do not always deliver the good news first; employees will quickly get used to waiting for the "but" to follow, and may not take the initial praise seriously. Praise by itself occasionally is also a good thing.

Recognition within the immediate working environment is a good thing, but businesses can also encourage their staff to enter business-related competitions and events. Creating a company newsletter that can be issued monthly or quarterly to highlight staff achievements is a good way of engaging employees and improving their skills at the same time. Good manager will be able to find something to praise in every one of their staff, and should seek to do this on a regular basis. There will always be staff whose abilities make them stand out from the rest; often it is these employees who miss out on acknowledgement because hard work is expected from them. Take the time to thank these workers, sometimes individually and sometimes publicly, as well as encouraging the less able staff. To lose your best employees because you simply did not say thank you occasionally is a poor business move.

Providing regular feedback during individual appraisal sessions also gives employees the opportunity to discuss how they feel about their own skills. These occasions can often result in an identification of a training need, or a shift of focus if an employee is keen to try other areas of the business or company. Feedback sessions can also be useful to clear the air and to prevent co-worker relationships from becoming hostile, if difficulties and personality clashes are identified, and the management acts to address these issues in a sensitive way.

Finally, employees should occasionally be given the opportunity to give feedback upwards on their managers, as well as receiving it. Make the process as simple and as anonymous as possible, and make it known that participation is not compulsory. However, employees who feel they are being listened to and treated fairly are more likely to build up a loyalty to the company, and are a good investment.

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