Bad Feedback Can Disengage 90% of Your Workforce

This Is Part One of Two in Our Series on Employee Feedback

Read Part Two Here.

It happens often, that yearly review creeps up, both management and employees are nervous and agitated, and feedback that was meant to come off as motivating instead leads to many employees feeling disengaged and driven to leave.

In today’s economic climate, employers need to address the strong correlation between retention and employee feedback. 90% of employees are actively disengaged after receiving negative feedback and 80% of employees are looking for other employment after negative feedback, says Gallup in a recent article Why Employees are Fed Up with Feedback. It’s clear that inadequate communication in the form of negative feedback is an important reason why employees are feeling unhappy in their positions. 

“90% of employees are actively disengaged after receiving negative feedback”

Here’s how you could be minimizing the likelihood that employees will leave, by supporting comfortable employee feedback: 

• Increase communication without necessarily increasing feedback. Only 3 out of 10 workers believe the communication/cooperation at work is “adequate,” says Gallup. By promoting communication in the workplace, you’re more likely to see employees ask for feedback more informally from their coworkers, minimizing the need for management to interfere.
  
  Open communication also increases motivation and productivity while ensuring employees are feeling valued and satisfied in their position. This means, that when you do need to give some form of feedback, such as in a yearly review, employees will be prepared and feel comfortable accepting feedback and using it to improve themselves in the workplace instead of igniting their eagerness to leave. 
• Develop a mentorship program to help prevent large mistakes that warrant future constructive/negative feedback. Only 16% of Millennials (the largest generation in the workforce) see themselves with the same employers a decade from now, according to a 2016 survey by Deloitte. Luckily, 68% of those surveyed were more likely to stay for more than 5 years if they had a mentor.
  

“Only 16% of Millennials (the largest generation in the workforce) see themselves with the same employers a decade from now”

• “Where it exists, mentoring is having a positive impact and six in ten (61 percent) Millennials are currently benefiting from having somebody to turn to for advice, or who helps develop their leadership skills…it will also go some way toward strengthening loyalty.” – Deloitte.
• An employee recognition and reward program secures positive feedback is widespread and welcomed. Fostering employee engagement is an important ingredient for building a strong company culture that supports feedback and loyalty.
  
  When employees support each others efforts and success, they begin developing a foundation of trust. When management bridges the communication gap by being involved in their employees’ goals and celebrating the successes with their team, feedback becomes welcomed. Even the not-so-positive material is absorbed properly because it gives staff the ability to correct their mistakes, which leads to more rewards. 

Promoting open communication and investing in mentorship and recognition programs are great first steps towards engaging with employees and motivating them to stay put, but there are times when constructive, and even negative feedback is required. How do managers prepare?  In fact, most don’t feel comfortable and believe they’re not good at giving feedback. It’s something that we’re not inherently good at, but there are methods of improving. Read our tips to promoting employee engagement and building the confidence to give feedback properly in part two of this series. Read Part Two Here.