Giving feedback to your team is a critical skill to manage their performance and move them forward.

Feedback helps people:-

• Understand job expectations
• Know what they do well
• Identify learning and development opportunities
• Set achievable goals
• Feel more involved and motivated
• Take control of their own performance

Feedback helps the business:-

• Reinforce good working habits
• Redirect poor working habits
• Improve working relationships
• Improve business performance

There are two types of feedback, motivational and developmental.

• Motivational feedback contains praise and encouragement for things that are done well
• Developmental feedback focuses on improvement and development areas. You ask the individual what needs to be improved or further develop and add possible actions.

The key is to give balanced feedback. Balanced feedback should have the right portion of motivational and developmental elements.

You may have heard of the feedback sandwich approach where you say something positive, then the negative and finish on a positive. We should be wary when using this approach as it can negate any developmental needs. A positive followed by what they need to do can work better.