Page 144 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

124 Building a High Morale Workplace

Giving Feedback to Employees Builds Morale

You can’t always praise your employees, of course. Sometimes

you need to provide feedback that’s not all positive. But if you
do it right, that feedback can be good for morale.
Just about everything we learn to do well we learn by
receiving feedback from someone. Whether it’s riding a bike or
learning to swim, developing coaching skills or creating an

effective strategic plan, we benefit from helpful feedback in
some way. And when a manager makes it a point to give
employees regular feed-
Big Benefits of back, he or she is actually
Feedback
sending a much bigger
What are some of the
message. The message
benefits of feedback? Consider these:
says, “I care about you
• Feedback creates trust.
• Feedback encourages cooperation and I want to help you to
and collaboration. develop your talents.”
• Feedback clarifies for employees Managers who care
what it means to do a job well and about helping their
what is unacceptable. employees develop should
• Feedback inspires employees to know how to effectively
develop new skills.
provide these four types of
• Feedback builds self-confidence.
feedback:

Type 1: Frequent and Sincere
Type 2: Fast and Action-Oriented
Type 3: Helpful and Corrective

Type 4: Empathetic and Sensitive

Type 1: Frequent and Sincere. The best managers have lots of
sincere and positive feedback to offer when they see good
things happening. They know that employees thrive on frequent
and positive input and that sincerity is the key to delivering their

message.
Here’s an example: “Super job, Kevin! This project wasn’t
easy from the start. You had a lot of obstacles to overcome and
you did it. Keep up the good work.” In this example, the man-
ager is not just giving positive input but also making it clear that