Sometimes You Need More than Just Performance Reviews
Performance Reviews are feedback, but they are slow and come around every year. This is just not enough for employees as they tend to get surprised when reviews mention the fact that some of their work may not be up to scratch. When this happens, employees get highly de-motivated as they are not told of these issues by their supervisor before the review.
Many companies that have a good reputation among job seekers give feedback to their employees quite often. This generation of employees demands more feedback, sometimes monthly and even daily! The most innovative and efficient employers deliver successfully. Employees want to do a good job and be recognised among their colleagues. Employees know that the only way they can improve at what they do is to know how they are and which areas they need to work on and hence, they tend to demand for feedback all the time.
Employees want their supervisor or manager to care about them and coach them to become the best at what they do. Apparently this is one of the most important factors that employees look for. They want feedback, good and bad. They want it fast. Getting feedback is a factor considered by most employees when it comes to deciding whether to stay in an organisation or leave.
However, a lot of organisations still fail to provide feedback. Why?
One of the main reasons and also one of the reasons that most employees tend to forget is that managers rarely have the time to carry it out. They are so busy with their own deadlines that they tend to forget about feedback and they would not want to give you inaccurate feedback.
There also many managers that are not trained and do not have the skills to give a proper feedback session. It is not because they do not want to. It is only because they do not know how to and hence, they are reluctant to provide it.
Some managers stick to the tradition and focus on giving the once-a-year review efficiently. They believe that giving a good performance review including everything from the year is equal to giving it monthly and hence they do not change the course.
Certain organisations are worried that feedback may lead to lawsuits. There are certain situations where the supervisor could say the wrong thing and the employee could file for a lawsuit, which he has every right to do. Organisations prefer avoiding such risks and therefore, do not provide feedback.
Then there are managers who believe that employees should know when they need to improve or not. They believe that great employees can direct themselves and are determined to develop themselves in their own way and do the best they can.
However, even though the above is true, the main issue that lies behind all these reasons is inevitable: Managers are simply afraid to give employees the truth, especially if it is ugly. Managers are supposed to give feedback, good or bad, but they are human beings as well and they loathe speaking the truth to employees especially when the feedback is negative. Apparently, letting employees know how they have performed is one of the hardest things that managers have to face and there are times when they would avoid all opportunities to get it over with until they decide to fire the person. However there are those who take care of it bluntly because they know that employees appreciate their honesty.
What managers fail to realise is that there is a massive upside to giving feedback frequently. Not only are employees happier, work is improved and the organisation performs better. Feedback develops employees and solves problems faster, teams become closer and more engaged, relationships between colleagues grow, employees tend to trust their supervisor and performance improves overall.
Organisations need to adopt this and communicate it to their managers as it helps the organisation in many ways including recruitment of talented employees. Feedback has never been in so much demand and it is a feature that all organisations should have in order to be successful.
