Continuous Feedback is crucial to improving employee performance

The current lack of physical proximity between teams should not shut performance management conversations down. When employees receive feedback about their work regularly, in real-time and in a structured manner, they're more likely to fully understand what is required to drive their productivity and performance.

Feedback is mission-critical to driving individual performance and in response to the rising numbers of OpenBlend users using our Feedback feature over the past twelve months, we have made a number of important changes to it, to enable managers of hybrid teams and employees that are working from home/on a hybrid basis to continue to receive constructive and positive feedback, regularly.

This expanded functionality of our Feedback feature makes it even easier to send and receive feedback that is constructive, objective, and above all, performance-focused.

Employee led and solutions-driven, our Feedback feature allows employees to request and receive feedback on particular projects and even one-off performances.

Our expanded OpenBlend Feedback feature makes it easier to:

• Receive and send feedback.
• Request and respond to feedback.
• Review the positives of projects and assess the areas in which further support might be required.

How to deliver feedback remotely with OpenBlend

We know that employees want immediate feedback so they can improve their performance on the go, rather than waiting for an annual employee performance review. Our enhanced Feedback feature enables colleagues and managers to deliver feedback remotely and in the right way. Employees, when they receive this feedback can then celebrate and reflect on their wins while setting new performance targets. The fact that the conversation is now open-ended and ongoing will create regular opportunities to discuss feedback, wherever you are working from.

Our new request feature, in particular, will make a huge difference to the outcomes of these conversations, because it allows employees to gain more specific feedback on the projects that are important to them, and the alert system makes sure that managers are aware and respond in good time.

Immediate and continuous feedback is important because it helps teams to meet their performance goals. The focus on strengths and development will help define next steps, ensuring that constructive changes are highlighted and implemented for future projects. Continuous communication is especially important for remote teams, to make sure performance management conversations do not take a backseat while you are working distantly.

Why performance and productivity require Continuous Feedback

Here are the various aspects of our enhanced Feedback feature that will help open up productive performance-based conversations:

• It’s employee led. Employees can request feedback on a particular project, alerting the manager on the OpenBlend platform, enabling managers to respond in a structured and timely manner.
• It allows employees to focus on the projects they really need to talk about.
• It’s simple to use. By providing an easy structure to follow and dividing feedback into two parts, being things that the employee is ‘doing well’ and the areas that ‘needs support’. It helps managers and employees evaluate performance and highlight areas that  require development.
• It facilitates effective conversations between managers and employees by giving managers a framework to follow that they can discuss in session.
• It’s grounded by established coaching frameworks, specifically the GROW Model – a simple yet powerful framework for structuring performance-based conversations.
• It allows the user to track progress throughout the year, reflect on achievements, and set new performance objectives.
• It provides a retrospective view of individual success and tracks progress and development within the platform.

And for further information on how to hold effective performance conversations that incorporate feedback in session, check out our top three tips below:

1. Start with the positives

Begin your conversation by stating what you think the employee has done well, and if you need to deliver negative feedback, always frame it in a constructive way. The OpenBlend Feedback feature is structured in such a way that you can clearly tell your employees what they have done well and highlight the areas in which they might need added support.

2. Be specific

It is important to let your employees know exactly what they’ve done well (because hearing your highlights will always mean more than a generic, “you did great!”), and what aspects of their performance they could possibly build on for next time. If you don’t give them specifics in this instance, how will they know what they need to work on in the future? To reflect this, the questions in our feedback section ask, “What has the employee done well?”, and “Where do they need support?” Instead of simply, “Has the employee done well?”, “Do they need support?”

3. Be objective

Stick to the facts and definitely don’t let your feelings get in the way. Replace emotive phrases like, “I like” and “I don’t like”, with, “The way you did that was …” Our feedback questionnaire does not ask for thoughts or opinions, but instead, it asks for performance-based appraisals.

Giving specific, objective, and constructive feedback is vital to driving employee performance. Getting positive feedback is a great morale boost, not to mention the perfect incentive to keep up the good work, while a constructive response about what they could do better will help your employees to perform at the next level next time around.

To find out how our new Continuous Feedback feature can boost employee productivity and performance inside your organisation, trial our performance management software with a free demo. You can also get in touch on 01628 613040 or email hello@openblend.com for more information.