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Feedback: Definition, issues and implementation

Team HeyTeam
Management
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An essential management tool, Feedback is an efficient way to obtain a concrete response from your employees regarding their mission and business life. It can be used effectively to mobilize company teams around a joint project and increase employee engagement. We explain everything you need to know about this aspect of communication. ‍

What is feedback in a company?

It is a feedback or criticism formulated on company processes in the professional environment. It is, in fact, a return of experience on a particular product, event, or subject.

There are different types of feedback:

  • Positive feedback, most often used to congratulate an employee
  • Developmental/improvement feedback
  • Corrective feedback (or constructive feedback), which involves constructive criticism of a concern or inappropriate behavior, for example
  • Feedforward, which in reality is not a feedback, but rather an expression of needs for the future by making use of the past.

Considered as one of the new major issues in business, feedback is a good practice that promotes both a good integration of staff and an excellent employee experience.

What are the different types of feedback?

Descending feedback (from HRs and managers to employees)

This tool gives the employee the keys to progress and shows a form of recognition of his work. Managers can review the strengths and weaknesses of an employee's work. They can then increase their skills, improve their performance and gain more responsibility within the company.

Ascendant feedback (from employees to HRs and managers)

HR and managers can assess the quality of their processes by soliciting feedback from their employees. Also, take note of any discrepancy between the desired and actual results. Furthermore, providing employees with feedback and acting on it allows you to increase their commitment.

Why establish the culture of feedback in a company?  

According to some, the concept of feedback entered corporate culture around the 1960s. Others mention the 1940s in terms of space engineering. In all cases, this is one of the many HR challenges that businesses face today (start-ups, SMEs or large groups).

When used in management, feedback should allow you to take a step back and constantly question yourself. Thus, before anything else, clear and transparent communication rules must be established in order to allow employees to issue returns without restriction.

Feedback must result in visible improvements. This internal communication tool has been proven to promote:

✔️ A better autonomy of the employees

✔️ Continuous progression based on the self-assessment of all employees (employees and the management team)

✔️ A way to deal with problems quickly

✔️ A more fluid and soothed communication.

How to boost feedback collection?

In order to improve the collection of employee feedback, here are 5 tips:

  • Inform your teams
  • Define the precise objectives of your feedbacks
  • One feedback = one action
  • Support your teams and managers
  • Use feedback of feedback to optimize the process

How to retain your employees thanks to feedback?

First and foremost, it is necessary to put in place a real feedback strategy. As we have already mentioned, feedback can be used at key employee moments (onboarding, crossboarding, offboarding, etc.) or during annual reviews.

In order to be certain of meeting your staff's expectations and needs, we recommend that you offer feedback as often as possible. This will help you identify problem areas and find a solution quickly.

A concrete example: remote work 💻. We observe that more and more employees are demanding it. For a company, it is therefore necessary to think about the right way to create a telework system in the company capable of meeting employees' expectations. This concerns the very nature of remote work (flex remote, full remote, hybrid work...), but also the employees' perceptions on this level (stress, private/work life balance...).

Depending on the results obtained, it will therefore be necessary to implement concrete actions of varying priority by involving the managers who will be best able to correlate these actions with the information obtained. 🔗

Don't wait to integrate feedback into your onboarding process. The HeyTeam platform will assist you in this.

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