Feedback, one of the most powerful communication tools, plays a crucial role in organizational development. But what is feedback? In essence, feedback is a communication process that involves managers and employees engaging in the analysis and assessment of situations and behaviors. Its purpose is to identify areas for improvement or reinforce strengths, fostering personal and professional growth within the organization.
As you can imagine, it is a vital process for all types of companies for many reasons: feedback helps employees to improve their skills and achieve their goals. Not to mention, feedback enhances the productivity and performance of the company. This is why it is so important to learn what feedback is, its importance, how to ask for feedback and how to give feedback correctly.
In short, it is an essential method within any organization that wants to enhance professional growth of its employees. In this article, we will take a closer look at what feedback is and why it is important for companies and their employees. So if you want to learn what feedback is, keep reading!
What is feedback?
Essentially, feedback is a valuable process of providing constructive information, ideas and guidance to people about their performance or work. It involves sharing observations, opinions and suggestions aimed at helping employees grow, learn and improve their skills.
Feedback is a powerful communication tool that promotes understanding and improves self-awareness. It is important to keep in mind that there are 9 different types of feedback that can enrich this communication process. The usefulness of each of them will depend on the context in which the conversation takes place. For example, giving feedback to someone in a performance review is not the same as giving feedback in a one-on-one meeting.
In addition to being a communication tool, feedback also functions as a method for tracking company workflows. This means that feedback allows the results obtained from an activity or task to be reintroduced into the system. The objective is to make the necessary modifications to optimize the company’s performance.
So, what is feedback for employees? A communication tool for self-awareness. And, what is feedback for companies? A method for system control and performance optimization.
Why is feedback important?
Whether in the context of professional relationships, personal growth or team dynamics, feedback serves as a powerful tool that drives individuals and companies toward excellence. Why? Let’s take a look.
Implementing an effective feedback strategy, such as the SBI model, allows you to obtain useful data to make the necessary changes to improve the daily routine of your employees and the health of your company. For this reason, the information obtained from a feedback process is very valuable.
In this sense, the data obtained from feedback has a direct impact on both employee and company. Here’s why feedback is so important.
And now that you have a general understanding of what feedback is and why it is important in general terms, let me tell you a bit more in detail about why it is important for employees and for the company.
5 Reasons why feedback is important to employees
It is not a secret for anyone: learning what feedback is, is useful to enhance personal and professional development of employees. In fact, it is an excellent tool to foster growth and skills development, offering learning opportunities and providing resources or additional training when needed. So, if you are wondering why feedback is so important to employees, take note of the following key aspects.
1. Develops self-awareness
Understanding what good feedback is and knowing how to use it correctly is key for employees, as it provides them with information about their strengths and weaknesses. It helps them gain a deeper understanding of their skills, behaviors, and impact on others. With this awareness, they can make conscious efforts to focus on their core strengths and work on areas that need improvement.
2. Promotes continuous training
Feedback encourages a mindset of continuous training and development. For example: by conducting performance reviews, employees can identify areas where they can enhance their knowledge, acquire new skills, and expand their capabilities. It motivates them to develop a sense of purpose, seek opportunities for growth and stay adaptable in a dynamic work environment.
Promoting continuous training enables employees to face new and challenging challenges. This gives people a feeling of fulfillment and growth in their jobs.
3. Fosters confidence and empowerment
Positive feedback and recognition boost employees’ confidence and self-esteem. When they receive acknowledgment for their accomplishments and efforts, it empowers them to take on new challenges, explore innovative solutions, and contribute more effectively to their team and organization.
4. Encourages adaptability and resilience
Establishing a norm of regular feedback is crucial for fostering psychological safety and promoting employee well-being. Through feedback, people can develop the ability to adapt to change, embrace new perspectives, and navigate obstacles effectively.
In this sense, constructive feedback provides employees with the opportunity to learn from mistakes, setbacks, and challenges. It fosters resilience and adaptability by encouraging employees to embrace feedback as a catalyst for improvement rather than as a personal criticism.
Confidence gained through feedback can have a ripple effect, influencing other areas of their personal and professional lives. At Nailted we are very aware of the importance of encouraging peer recognition.
An excellent way to do this is through gamified dynamics, such as the “Claps” on Fridays. This initiative is ideal for transmitting positive feedback to your colleagues through applause and words of praise for each other’s work.
Obviously, when employees receive feedback that recognizes their efforts and achievements, they feel valued and appreciated, which boosts their morale and encourages them to perform at their best.
5. Helps nurture healthy relationships
Feedback facilitates open and honest communication between employees and their managers or workmates. It promotes a culture of trust, where they feel comfortable sharing ideas, seeking support without feeling judged (even if they have received negative feedback), and collaborating to achieve common goals. In addition to the foregoing, feedback fosters effective communication.
In this sense, it facilitates constructive discussions, and helps build stronger relationships among team members.
4 Reasons why feedback is important to the company
Certainly, feedback plays a crucial role in the growth and success of a company. Overall, feedback contributes to the company’s success by enhancing performance, talent development, customer satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness. Here are some of the reasons it is worth it for companies to know how to use it effectively.
1. Promotes talent development
Feedback can help you define the best strategy for promoting your employees. It could be horizontal or vertical growth, but what matters is that everyone feels progress. In this sense, you can craft a career development plan for your employees through collecting feedback.
It involves gaining a deep understanding of their professional skills, identifying their needs within the company, and recognizing their preferences. In fact, it is advantageous for the company to position employees where they are most comfortable and productive.
2. Supports innovation and creativity
A good feedback strategy fosters a trusting and open environment where employees feel safe to express their ideas and contribute their unique perspectives. In a safe environment, employees are more likely to unleash their creativity and potential at work. And this fact, of course, has a beneficial impact on the projects on which the company embarks.
By fostering active participation and the exchange of ideas, feedback facilitates the generation of creative solutions and drives innovation throughout the organization. In fact, feedback helps verify that employees feel motivated and empowered to explore new ideas, experiment with different approaches, and propose innovative solutions.
3. Enhances organizational learning
Feedback plays a vital role in promoting organizational learning and growth. By actively implementing feedback strategies, companies not only benefit their employees but also foster improvement at an organizational level.
Employees are encouraged to provide feedback by sharing their perspectives, ideas and suggestions. And, in fact, it is precisely this feedback that companies use to make internal improvements.
Moreover, feedback has a positive impact on the company itself. It enables organizations to refine processes, identify areas for improvement, and address inefficiencies. By acting upon the feedback received, companies can improve workflows and enhance organizational structure. The effects of feedback create a ripple effect throughout the organization.
4. Improves customer satisfaction
It is clear that the organizational improvements that result from feedback provide companies with valuable information to identify strengths and areas that need improvement. But there is another great benefit: feedback has a direct effect on customer satisfaction. But how?
Feedback can help employees detect certain inefficient practices that can impact customers and thus affect their satisfaction levels. In this sense, constructive feedback is the key tool to correct such inefficiencies and provide better customer service.
By optimizing internal workflows and refining processes based on internal feedback strategies, companies can offer a higher level of service to their customers. This will consequently improve their satisfaction and their view of the company.
How to promote a feedback culture with Nailted
Now you have a clear understanding of what feedback is, let’s talk about the effective implementation of a feedback culture within your organization. Spoiler alert: Nailted makes it incredibly easy for you.
Nailted helps you establish a culture where feedback is embedded into the fabric of your organization. Launch regular check-ins, conduct periodic 360 performance reviews, send feedback surveys to employees and make recognition an habit in your company.
By making feedback a habit in your company, , Nailted creates a safe space where employees can express their opinions openly and trust flourishes, promoting psychological safety. How is it done? Let’s see it.
- Build a positive feedback culture: Nailted is very aware about the importance of encouraging peer-to-peer recognition. For this purpose, a powerful way to achieve this is through the “Friday claps”. Every Friday, team members receive +100 claps to send to their colleagues. Thus you can turn feedback into a habit and build a culture where recognition becomes second nature.
- Involve managers in your feedback strategy: Nailted encourages regular 1:1 meetings, providing managers with a dedicated space to coordinate, schedule, and follow up on these crucial interactions. Thus, companies can get valuable insights from managers’ feedback, allowing them to track progress, detect red flags, and standardize policies and culture.
- Simplify performance reviews: conducting performance reviews becomes effortless for all stakeholders involved thanks to Nailted. From self-evaluations and peer-to-peer evaluations to manager evaluations and 360-degree feedback, you can offer default settings and templates to streamline the process.
- Make feedback a habit in your company: through features like check-ins and feedback surveys, you can easily gather feedback from employees on an ongoing basis. Thus, you can evaluate your employee progress at any time in order to improve their experience in the workplace. These tools give you an up-to-date view of your employees’ progress in relation to their goals, challenges and development opportunities, and also provide you with a structured framework for discussing all of these issues.
At this point, you know what feedback is, its importance and how Nailted can help you build your own feedback culture. So, are you ready to discover how we can help you? check out the Nailted´s feedback guide for more info!
