The essence of the article is that companies need to give additional importance to the feedback system. The companies that have effective feedback systems have less communication problems. The article discusses how important performance feedback is and several ways it can be implemented and communicated effectively. After going through the essay, I must say that I have learned the reason why companies perform performance feedback and why they spend so much time into it. After all, their ability keep employees motivated and achieve desired results depends upon feedback communication. It helps employees to understand what is expected of them and how they are performing. The essay details the characteristics of an effective performance feedback system and the way feedback can be made more effective. Stress has been placed on the relationship between improving performance standards and an effective feedback system.
Performance feedback has become an essential part of work life as it provides the scale on which effectiveness and growth is measured. The chapter summarizes the principles, implementation and communication of effective feedback system. The essay has provided a detailed summary of the basic principles that need to be followed to ensure feedback system is effective. I personally like it that it has been made very clear that performance standards are essential aspects of feedback systems. Every principle enhances that performance standards are not only important, but an effective feedback system aims to improve the performance standards in the long term. It is easy to understand as employees are informed about performance standards, improving performance standards and sustaining performance standards. Therefore, high performance standards are the ultimate goal of an organization when they are performing feedback.
There are several necessities that are discussed through which effective feedback systems can be implemented. One of the most interested one was the employees receiving informal feedback. It is easy to understand that the way informal feedback can help in uplifting employee morale and make them feel that their effort is counted. The chapter explains several problems that can arise when managers forget to give regular feedbacks and in such cases informal feedback can play an intervening role. I personally agree with this understanding as informal feedback can become fuel for employees who learn that their leaders appreciate their work. Another important aspect discussed regarding feedback is that its importance is only discovered when performance standards are falling. It is easy to understand that managers only give feedback when things are not going the way expected, but it is one of the biggest mistakes.
There are methods discussed for communicating performance feedback has been discussed in the chapter such as self-appraisal and one-minute praise. These methods are practiced quite often by companies, as they produce results keeping communication lines open and in terms of improved performance standards. In terms of self-appraisal it is discussed that employees are more or less aware of their performance standard. Therefore, it makes sense to give employees opportunities to appraise themselves on the basis of standards expected from them. Self-appraisal works as a mirror for employees and helps them to maintain or improve their performance standards themselves. The method of one-minute praise provides employers an opportunity to identify things that employees are doing well and praise them for it. In my opinion, such method of a feedback not only boosts employee’s confidence, but also motivates the employee to maintain a high level of performance standard.
The essay also discusses the way message needs to be delivered to ensure employees understand the importance of the message. The message should not have any form of bias from the appraiser as the message could not be effective when the managers are biased. Therefore, many managers prefer to avoid being judgmental in their communication as it can have a negative impact on an employee. The goal of feedback is to communicate the lowered performance standards, but they aim to deliver the message by making employees comfortable. The employee should feel that managers are helping them rather than feel that they are being criticized. Also, many poor performers choose to find out only the positives from constructive criticism and it is another major problem with feedback communication. The management needs to make sure that poor performers are not able to find excuses; rather they should understand that mistakes and start working on them. Therefore, the aim here is to ensure managers find balance between being biased and too critical and ensuring the message is constructive enough to help employees improve performance.
Conclusion
The article discusses the importance of performance feedback and the how it is linked with improving performance standards. The principles of an effective feedback system discuss its goal as improving performance standards of employees. Expected performance standards can only be achieved when employees are able to understand expectations from them. To communicate expected performance standards, there are methods that can be used such as informal feedback and self-appraisal. These methods are useful as it allows employees to ponder upon their performance standards and work on improving them. The methods need to be implemented, but the message from feedback needs to be communicated in a certain way overcomes possible bias. Finding balance between constructive criticism and an employee finding excuses is one of the goals of effective feedback system.
Work Cited
Clampitt, Phillip G. "Chapter 7 Providing Performance Feedback." Communicating for Managerial Effectiveness: Problems, Strategies, Solutions. 5th ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2012. 151-171. Print.
