What Is Feedback-Driven Culture and How Can You Build It for Your Team
Publié le 24 January 2022
For businesses looking to create a strong work environment based on collaboration and support, it is important to ask what is feedback-driven culture and how can you build it for your team.
Feedback. It sends shivers down your spine, eliciting images of red pen marks scratched across your homework, question marks with no explanation, and staying after class to speak with the teacher.
It has a bad reputation and, for many of us, feedback in the workplace is just as scary. It points out what we should have done better, and can make us feel unmotivated and unproductive. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In theory, feedback should be a great opportunity for improvement and collaboration, making your teams more effective and imaginative in their roles. The good news is that this is completely achievable.
Building a culture of feedback takes some unlearning and an adjustment of its connotations to be more positive, but many businesses are swapping out intimidating annual feedback reviews for a more welcomed approach based in feedback-driven culture.
Why Does Feedback-Driven Culture Matter?
A feedback-driven culture brings the whole team together and treats them as equals. Whether on the frontlines of the business, managing customers, in charge of call center supervision, or higher up the management chain, your perspective is valuable to the running of a business. What you say is important and can provide others with a useful perspective they might not have previously considered.
When feedback is isolated to certain times of the year, or to particular people who provide it, feedback often becomes one-sided. Without consistent communication and inclusion of the whole team, it falls flat, not reaching the heart of the issues it set out to originally resolve.
Feedback shouldn’t only identify bad things – simply congratulating someone on a job well done, or recognizing how well a team member integrated new techniques into the work process , are also valuable forms of feedback. Encouragement boosts morale and brings together employees to work towards the same goals.
Benefits
Both in terms of business success and employee wellbeing, there are many perks that come along with a feedback-driven culture. If you’re still on the fence about whether it’s a good fit for your business, it’s worth noting even just a handful of the many benefits feedback-driven culture brings to your workplace and the employees you have there:
- Improvements can be made more quickly – For example, rather than waiting months to discuss the results of your software test automation with the whole team, by which point it’s no longer relevant, feedback-driven culture means you can highlight it and act on it within the space of a few weeks.
- Feedback empowers employees – positive feedback can increase employees’ confidence in their roles, as well as making them keener to do a good job. Likewise, giving them the power to offer feedback makes them active members of your team.
- It can increase productivity – from an employee’s perspective, knowing that they can make changes to the way your business is run is going to make them feel a lot more invested in your success. By being engaged in business operations, employees are more likely to be productive in their roles as well.
- Feedback helps businesses be more agile – circumstances can change instantly, yet for many businesses, their feedback system doesn’t allow them to adapt quick enough. Having a constant flow of feedback means that you can face challenges head-on as they occur.
- Encourages employee loyalty – when employees feel unappreciated in their roles, it’s not surprising turnover skyrockets. A feedback-driven culture makes everyone feel like an integral part of the team – investing in the company and building a sense of loyalty.
- Enables better communication – regularly sharing feedback acts as an incentive to open communication lines about other topics, such as managing online call fatigue or the general wellbeing of employees, which can be incredibly valuable to discuss.
- Creates a more positive workplace – moving the feedback focus away from naming and shaming and instead repeatedly highlighting improvement and encouragement can change the atmosphere of an office into a place where employees truly enjoy working.
How to Build a Feedback-Driven Culture
So, you’ve decided that your business could benefit from a feedback-driven culture. It does take some building up to and learning throughout the process, to get your team on board and foster a feedback-driven culture. However, it doesn’t have to be such a daunting transition – take it one step at a time and you and your team will adapt to the new assessment style, integrating it into everyday practice.
Lead by Example
If your employees see you and other company leaders committing to giving, receiving and acting on feedback, then they are far more likely to do it as well. It’s a lot easier to adapt work behaviours when there is an example to replicate. This also reassures employees that feedback doesn’t have to be a negative experience and that they are encouraged to respond and reciprocate.
Make it clear during meetings that you want to hear feedback from the whole team. You should actively notice your team’s successes, highlight areas for improvement, and examine potential challenges looming in the distance. Provide free conference calls with your teams to discuss issues and collaborate on solutions, showing the rest of the team how it’s done.
Give Good Feedback
It sounds simple but it’s likely that at some point you’ve received a piece of feedback that left you confused. That’s not the sort of feedback that you should be aiming for here. Feedback should always be clear and delivered sensitively and honestly, getting to the heart of the issue so it can be resolved effectively.
When delivering feedback, make sure it’s at a suitable time, leaving space to listen to how you can improve your employee experience and answer any questions. Pair constructive feedback with what your team is doing well, keeping the experience positive and growth-centred.
Create Feedback Inlets
Not everyone gives or receives feedback in the same way. One person may be very comfortable with doing so in large meetings, where others might prefer to voice their opinions during a one-on-one meeting or through a virtual session. Having a variety of feedback inlets available means everyone can take advantage of it, whatever situation they are in, in a way that is best suited to how they participate.
Look into different ways of giving feedback and ask your team what their preferences are. From surveys, office hours meetings, group sessions, even integrating feedback into your workflow platforms – some methods will work better for your team than others.
Encourage Regular Feedback
Maintain continuous feedback both within your teams and the larger department. It can be easy to put in the effort when it’s a new concept but over time the enthusiasm can decrease. It’s important to have the structure in place to continue regular feedback conversations. Feedback shouldn’t be left to simply whenever you remember, as work gets busy and these moments can be easily forgotten.
Schedule feedback meetings or automate feedback survey emails regularly throughout your work calendar to help organize yourself and your team, even when working from home. Ensuring this is a continuous practice helps your team to get comfortable receiving feedback and also offering it on a regular basis.
Act On It
Feedback is no use when it’s just empty words with no follow-up action. It calls for people to make changes and do something about what has been said. Feedback-driven culture goes hand in hand with growth mindsets and looking to constantly improve upon your best practice. Otherwise, it becomes a stilted, slightly pointless exercise and your employees will lose faith in the entire process.
Even if you have an online pool of feedback, regularly go through these points in a meeting, planning how to tackle the challenges and celebrating success stories. After the feedback session employees should know what’s happening next, whether they’re introducing parallel ringing systems to customer services, hosting supervisions with managers, or contacting an outside specialist. Enact these changes as soon as possible, so they don’t crop up again.
Putting Feedback at the Heart of Your Workplace Culture
Feedback-driven cultures don’t appear one day and take over your workplace. They take time and intentional practice to put into place – even more so when managing hybrid working. It can be tricky, but it’s worth it once giving feedback comes naturally to your teams. Things will go wrong along the way; however, this should be viewed as a chance to make use of your new style of feedback. Notice where improvements are needed and adjust accordingly.
Gone are the days when feedback was only for annual reviews – continuous feedback brings about swift changes and responds to unprecedented events with ease. If you want to compete in current markets, you need to ask what is feedback-driven culture and how to build it for your team. This requires a level of ongoing feedback that is only achieved when it’s at the center of your workplace culture. So, get started building your feedback-driven culture now and soon you will have an improved, open and supportive workplace.
