Feedback is a must to a distant world? blog

How to provide feedback to your colleagues is a a challenge. How specific should I be how do I maintain between directness and sensitivity? What can I do to promote an engaging discussion that will leave my coworker feeling confident and positive?

A remote working environment can amplify those challenges. The body language and subtle signals that may be readily perceived when in person may be difficult to detect remotely. When it comes to offering constructive feedback, positive or not, wires get crossed and the person who is listening might not be in the right condition to be able to comprehend your thoughts.

Feedback, despite its complications and vulnerabilities, is a necessary part of working together. You can't simply hope that your team will magically narrow the gap on those areas of improvement; nor is your team able to carry on its efforts for a long time without the support of its leaders and encouragement.

In this piece, we'll share some best practices that can help improve your feedback with your colleagues. So, let's get started.

Feedback constructively

Take into consideration the way of delivery

There are a variety of methods for communications at your disposal make sure you choose the right one. Make a habit of asking newly recruited team members (or existing team members) how they prefer to communicate, and what they would like to hear from them in feedback.

Even though your company might have standard annual reviews, feedback can be given at any moment and it is important to ensure that the team members are at their desks and are comfortable receiving feedback. This could mean shutting off the camera, or mailing a thoughtful email, or scheduling periodic 1:1 meetings, based on their personal comfort level and objectives within the organization.

Create a safe environment

In a physical office you'll find numerous ways for you to create a positive impression through the environment. Invite a coworker to a coffee break and discuss what they thought of the big meeting with clients that didn't go so well, or go to a boardroom for intense discussions, or take them to the hall to give them a quick hugs. However, in an environment that is remote there is a lot of difficulty in choosing the most appropriate setting for what you'd like to talk about. Instead, you'll have to set up psychologically safety signals.
That could include ensuring the time of your meeting is in a place where people don't be distracted by work demands, dressing appropriately for the situation (a casual dress code can go far in making individuals feel more relaxed) as well as recommending an off-camera or phone chat for people to get a break from their screens. The use of a voice-only conference also cuts down the intimidation of the meeting and fosters active listening on both sides. Which brings us to our next topic.

Listen (but don't pry!)

In a workforce that is distributed, with communication patterns constantly changing and the lines between personal and professional life are becoming less clear Active listening can build confidence and trust. Listening actively gives you a situational understanding of what your colleagues go through in their lives outside of work, and the factors that affect their performance. It gives you the opportunity to increase the quality of feedback you give, to understand how to improve it as well as how you can create an environment that is more conducive to your colleagues.

Start with the good instead of the negative

It's long been known that a compliment sandwich -- where negative feedback is sandwiched in between two positives - is a successful method to convey difficult news. But, positive feedback has gained a sense of urgency in recent times. Most people are stressed in a variety of areas (like health, family as well as social and existential) and, despite all your efforts, most likely also professionally) and would greatly get positive feedback.

In the midst of all these competing stresses of life, psychologists have called negativity bias that can be described as the tendency to focus and dwell on negative criticism over positive feedback. That means employers need to do their best to emphasize those who are positive over those who are not. No matter how critical your feedback might be, you should be able to start with respect and empathy, and acknowledge all the hard work that your team members contributed to this challenging time.

You should be specific and take action when you share your feedback.

In order to counter negative bias, you should keep your feedback specific, practical insights instead of general statements about confidence, attitudes, attitude to work or conflict resolution abilities, which could be easily misinterpreted or unhelpful.

A positive feedback experience is not just a review of your performance. It's also an opportunity for growth and setting goals. Feedback that is most beneficial comes provided when you have a clear objective and target to achieve, and you can be clear about what the person can do to get them there.

You can also tie feedback to the action or impact you want What their strategy directly resulted in a good income or unintentional or inadequate communication led to another colleague needing to repeat certain work or how the situation could be improved next time.

Your feedback should be prioritized to highlight the most important points

Instead of saving an endless list of criticisms or comments to sift through at a meeting, consider making your comments more specific to points that would make the most difference in places when it is needed.

Take a look at the key points you learned together

When you have finished the meeting, you should ask your participants to review the main aspects. You can either brainstorm with them how they can overcome gaps in efficiency and/or grow further in their role (and what ways you may be able to support them) or ask them to give a summary of the feedback meeting when they are at ease enough to be able to. The goal is to make sure that both of you are on the same page, and you're able to assure that the information you've received has arrived exactly where it was intended.

Follow up

After a few weeks or even months following your feedback session after your feedback meeting, you should check in with them to see what they're up to. This is an occasion to build trust, make sure they're able to balance their shifting responsibilities, and encourage constructive feedback.

Video tips for collaboration and feedback

Make use of video recordings to create presentations to get review

Record post-mortem thoughts, and the group's feedback

Feedback and how to provide it. FAQs

    What are some examples of positive feedback?    

Positive feedback example: "Sarah has done an incredible job at removing unnecessary assignments and developing efficient tools for us to use. We'd like to see her continue to increase her expertise through tackling new projects and sharing her expertise and abilities through presentations and other methods."                     How can you write Peer feedback?    

Couch constructive feedback with positive feedback. Your feedback should be concrete and precise, as well as connected to a purpose. Give team members the opportunity to respond. Listen with empathy and offer assistance when required.                     What's an example of constructive feedback?    

A positive example of feedback "Phil is able to handle a workload that was 10% higher than in the year before with enthusiasm, running his programs efficiently in a timely manner. The only challenge I'd like to present to him in the coming year is to increase the level of his communication with stakeholders to maintain openness throughout his project's period to stay clear of roadblocks that could arise."