How to build a culture of giving great feedback

Whether you're receiving accolades for a job excellently executed or seeking advice on a project that isn't yielding the intended results, feedback serves as one of the most valuable indicators of your progress toward your goals. However, the presence of a healthy feedback culture is imperative for this to occur within a workplace.

In this article, Aniday will elucidate the concept of a feedback culture and how to build a culture of giving great feedback throughout your organization.

What is a feedback culture?

A feedback culture refers to an environment in which individuals are comfortable, secure, and encouraged to share and receive feedback. This culture can be cultivated in any environment where people are empowered to express their viewpoints and assess situations without the fear of facing consequences. Feedback may be directed towards individuals, teams, supervisors, or even processes and the overall environment.

Benefits of A Feedback Driven Culture

When effectively implemented, workplaces that foster and cultivate a robust feedback culture experience a host of significant benefits. Let's delve deeper into the merits of a feedback culture.

Empowerment and Enhanced Engagement

Encouraging regular feedback from employees fosters a sense of ownership over their work, resulting in increased engagement. This consistent feedback communicates to employees that their contributions are valued, whether positive or constructive, reinforcing their impact.

Moreover, when organizations facilitate employee feedback, it empowers individuals to take ownership of their work and the company's success. This fosters employee voice, allowing them to express their views and influence decisions at work. Consequently, this empowerment leads to higher engagement, a greater sense of value, and increased appreciation.

Building Trust

A feedback culture fosters trust and respect among employees, bridging hierarchical gaps. When open and effective communication occurs between colleagues, regardless of their positions, it deepens understanding and connection. 

Harvard Business Review notes that high-trust organizations experience 40% less burnout, 74% less stress, and 50% higher productivity.

In this culture, direct and honest feedback is the standard, reducing ambiguity and suspicions. Open, honest, and respectful communication flourishes, further strengthening trust throughout the organization.

Generating Valuable Data

A robust feedback culture enables continuous information exchange throughout the organization, facilitating data-driven improvements. It transcends annual reviews, providing rich insights for managers, employees, and leaders.

For instance, when a manager seeks project feedback, they gain insights into strengths, challenges, and employee satisfaction. This feedback loop informs decisions and drives improvements.

Additionally, feedback received by employees from managers aids their performance and growth tracking.

Motivating Employees

Feedback, whether positive or negative, motivates employees. In a recent Officevibe survey, 78% of employees stated that recognition fuels their motivation. Recognition can be public or private, signifying the value of an employee's contributions. 

Constructive feedback, seen as a valuable "gift," also motivates by offering guidance for development and productivity. For example, when a manager provides feedback, it supports an employee's growth and professional improvement.

Tactics for Creating a Culture Focused on Feedback

In this section, we will provide you in detailed a few practical tips for bulding a feedback focused culture 

Appreciating Employee Input

A thriving feedback culture hinges on the genuine appreciation of the employee voice. This entails creating an environment where team members and managers can respectfully exchange feedback, confident that their thoughts, opinions, and ideas will be given due consideration.

To make the most of employee input, it's crucial to have a deliberate strategy and a matching program in place. This ensures that employees can voice their thoughts and receive substantive responses, actions, or follow-ups. Employees need to know that their feedback is not just acknowledged and dismissed but genuinely heard and impactful.

Act on Feedback 

Feedback, without subsequent action, remains mere conversation. A genuine feedback culture ensures that feedback is not only shared and received openly but is also acted upon when warranted.

For instance, if an employee mentions that a recent project required an extra three days of work, managers should acknowledge this and consider it in future project timelines. Similarly, if a manager provides constructive feedback during a one-on-one meeting about an employee's tendency to dominate discussions, the employee should heed this advice and strive to improve.

To achieve this, all parties involved in feedback exchanges should collaborate to establish and follow up on concrete action steps, ensuring accountability.

Cultivate Trust and Safety

Sharing feedback can be intimidating, particularly when directed towards superiors or leaders in the organization. An essential aspect of a feedback culture is ensuring that all employees feel secure when providing candid feedback. Any doubt or hesitation can undermine the effectiveness of an organization's feedback culture.

The key questions to consider are, "Do people feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution? Are they confident they can speak up and won't be humiliated, ignored, or blamed?" These are crucial considerations when establishing a feedback culture.

To promote this sense of safety, one approach is to facilitate entirely anonymous feedback platforms. For instance, using a collective intelligence tool allows users to pose questions and receive anonymous responses, ensuring that "ideas are evaluated based on their merit, not the source."

Implement Feedback Training

Providing and receiving feedback is a skill that may not come naturally to everyone and requires development. To ensure effective participation in a feedback culture, it's crucial to offer standardized training to all members of the organization.

Training can take various forms, including mandatory company-wide workshops, presentations, small group sessions, individual mentorship meetings, or other formats tailored to the organization's needs.

When considering feedback culture training, it's essential to address these key questions, regardless of the chosen program or approach:

• Why is feedback training important for our organization?

• What are the different types of feedback and when should each be utilized?

• How can employees give and receive feedback respectfully and productively?

• Are there company-wide standards or procedures for sharing and receiving feedback?

Define Core Processes and Expectations

A feedback culture can only thrive when every member of an organization adheres to the correct processes. Those uncertain about when and where to offer feedback are likely to withhold it, hindering the development of a feedback culture.

Continuous encouragement of feedback, along with the establishment of suitable channels, should be integral to this approach, as covered in the organization-wide training to ensure alignment. Establishing clear expectations regarding feedback is a paramount method for also helps cultivating a feedback culture.

Employees within the organization should comprehend:

• The designated feedback channels

• The timing and frequency for delivering feedback

• The recipients of feedback

• The expected sources of feedback

• The subsequent steps following feedback delivery or reception

By instilling this understanding early on, companies can lay the groundwork for a healthy feedback culture.

Utilize Diverse Feedback Channels

A comprehensive feedback culture relies on more than occasional employee surveys. To foster a holistic feedback culture, it's essential to establish and manage multiple feedback channels for individuals and teams. These can include:

• Slack channels

• Town hall meetings

• One-on-one sessions

• Team meetings

• Engagement surveys (as one part of the feedback culture, not the sole channel)

• Feedback and people management software

• Employee appreciation and recognition tools

• Collective intelligence software 

• Individual self-feedback forms

Select the channels that best suit your organization and people.

Prioritize Respect

In building a feedback culture, maintaining a sense of respect is paramount. During feedback training, ensure that all participants understand the effective and ineffective ways of giving and receiving feedback.

For instance, those providing feedback should:

• Seek permission before offering unsolicited feedback, even if it's positive.

• Focus on factual information, avoiding personal emotions.

• Address one main component of feedback rather than listing multiple topics.

• Ask whether the feedback was helpful for future reference.

• Avoid the classic "sandwich" approach (combining one positive, one negative, and another positive point), which can be perceived as insincere and erode trust.

Receiving feedback respectfully involves:

• Clearly communicating your willingness to receive feedback.

• Listening without interruption or immediate defensiveness.

• Maintaining open and receptive body language.

• Expressing gratitude for the feedback received.

Conclusion

By going beyond annual engagement surveys and integrating feedback into all stages of the employee experience, organizations can create a more engaging work environment and foster business growth. Aniday hopes this article has given you an insightful overview on how to build a culture of giving great feedback to build a solid healthy organization.