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Jun 7, 2018
Dan Rose, Content Creator at SkillPath
A manager’s motivation for giving negative feedback to an employee should be to encourage change — to help the employee grow, get better results, or stop doing something that is holding back success.
While there are obviously differences in people’s receptiveness to corrective feedback, in general, research shows that people believe constructive criticism is essential to their career development. Millennials, in fact, crave feedback. Some studies have shown that employees today want corrective feedback over positive feedback by a three-to-one margin.
In a blog post on giving feedback to top sales performers on Salesforce.com, Peri Shawn agrees. “Most people like to receive accolades … but there’s a place where positive feedback can be unproductive. When trying a new approach, salespeople usually appreciate and desire positive feedback. But once team members develop a level of skill or mastery in a particular area … they want to know what they did that didn’t work and figure out how to do it even better next time.”
The best time to deliver negative feedback is closest to the time of the behavior you’d like to change. Accumulating items for an annual review that’s six months away is wasting time and risking a repeat. This is yet another reason your feedback—both positive and negative—should be structured and constant throughout the year. Nothing infuriates an employee more than waiting months to find out they’ve been doing something incorrectly while all you’ve done is kept track of how often they’ve done it.
Everyone wants feedback. Yes, it’s easier for managers to deliver praise and recognition, but employees need and appreciate well-delivered, well-timed corrective feedback.
Dan Rose
Content Creator at SkillPath
Dan Rose is a content creator at SkillPath who uses his experience from a 30-year writing career to focus on timely events that impact today’s business world.
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