How to Provide Effective Feedback

If your goal is smooth agency operations, you need to make sure you have a strong, high-performing team. But what happens when you notice an employee is underperforming? Do you immediately assume the employee lacks the drive or skills to do their role, or do you take a step back and consider your agency management style?

Employees perform best when they have comprehensive feedback to go on, so think about your conversations with your team.  When you notice an issue, you have an opportunity to coach employees toward high performance rather than being hyper focused on what is going wrong. So how do you give effective feedback? Follow these 6 pieces of advice. 

Your first step in giving feedback is a fact-finding mission. Put the issue or bad outcome aside and do your best to establish how your employee came to those results. “Tell me a bit more about the method you used,” or “Help me understand your process.” If you want to coach your employees toward success, you need to understand their perspectives. 

Before you can fix an undesirable behavior, you need to understand the root cause. Don’t just make assumptions that the employee isn’t capable. There can be any number of reasons why a performance issue can occur, but if you take a hammer and nail approach to feedback, you’ll kill your workplace culture. 

Once you figure out the root cause of the issue, you can work with the employees to bridge any gaps in their abilities. Perhaps there was something that didn’t sink in during agency training and is as simple as a little more learning. Is there a process where the employee keeps getting hung up? Where can you offer more support? Collaborate with your employee on ways to drive better results. 

Poor performance is often related to unclear expectations. It could very well be that your employee isn’t performing well because they don’t know what success actually looks like. Show your team examples of what good looks like and always lay out your exact expectation so they know what they are working towards.

The next step for improving your agency management style and giving great feedback is coaching inputs and behaviors. Once we’ve established what good work looks like, you can work on coaching your employees towards the behaviors they can control to reach the desired results. 

The last piece of the feedback puzzle is follow up. When you’re coaching an employee and providing feedback, don’t leave them in the lurch after you’ve had the conversation. Make sure to follow up with the employee and ask how things are going implementing the feedback and ask if there is any other way you can give support.

Don’t derail your agency operations by creating an environment where your team members can’t thrive. Follow these six tips on giving better feedback and put yourself, and your team, on the path to success. 

Looking to improve your management or agency training? The experienced and motivated team at 8 Figure Agency wants to support you in taking your agency to the next level. Schedule a free consultation today.

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