As I’ve written before, feedback is important for millennial employees. Whether they’re doing a good job or not, they simply want to know how their efforts are measuring up to your expectations. Many millennials grew up with responsive parents and participated in a lot of highly coached extracurricular activities such as sports and the arts, so they’re used to hearing about their performance.
This high level of employee interaction and coaching may seem exhausting to managers, but it doesn’t have to be. I’ve been reading up on how leaders can — manageably — improve employee feedback and coaching in order to give millennials what they’re looking for in the workplace.
Giving Effective Feedback When You’re Short on Time via HBR: “For the majority of managers, providing feedback — particularly constructive feedback — is stressful and requires significant forethought….That’s why the key to reducing the time you spend mulling over and preparing for each coaching conversation is to have a standard way in: a simple, routinized way to open discussions about performance. Keep it simple, and announce directly what’s to come. A straightforward ‘I’m going to give you some feedback’ or ‘Are you open to my coaching on this?’ gets immediate attention and sets the right tone. It will make it easier to prepare for the game if you have your opener ready. Furthermore, your direct reports will become familiar with your opener, and that will help them be attuned to and hear the feedback more clearly.”
How to Give Effective Praise and Better Motivate Your Team via Lifehacker: “Praise increases your team members’ confidence levels. A high confidence level helps them enthusiastically pursue goals and, in turn, successfully meet them. Second, a team member will be receptive to suggestions after you fuel her determination with praise. This allows you to suggest new tasks that can improve her final product. There’s a secret to boosting determination with praise, though. In short, you can’t signal that the person you’re praising has already made enough progress. This encourages your teammate to relax his efforts. You have to stress that though he’s done well, he still hasn’t reached his goal.”
How To Change Your Employee’s Behavior via Forbes: “As Karlyn Borysenko explains, there’s a difference between feedback and coaching, and both are required to help an employee make important changes: ‘Feedback is top-down communication that is intended to immediately adjust behavior. Coaching is a collaborative, ongoing process that is intended to develop employees over time.’ In order to help your employee achieve performance improvement, ‘you want to immediately correct behaviors that are getting in the way of success and help them to develop the skills that will move their professional career forward.’”
Why Millennials Need Constant Feedback At Work via Business Insider: “Millennials grew up with the Internet, which offers instant gratification and quick feedback, and they expect that in other aspects of their lives. ‘That’s just part of the changing ethos, especially with younger workers,’ explains Jeff Lawson, chief executive of Twilio. ‘If you get into the habit of regular feedback, it’s not confrontational; it’s just the ebb and flow of conversation and a constant tweaking of how you work with somebody.’”
Improving Employee Performance Is All About Communication via Business News Daily: “‘Ask plain, open-ended questions that start from square one and get to the root of the problem: “Tell me in your own words your understanding of the objectives you have to meet. What do you feel is holding you back from meeting your objectives? Why do you think that? How would you overcome this roadblock?” More important than asking the right questions is keeping quiet and being a good listener. One of the biggest sources of frustration in the office is feeling like you aren’t being heard.’ – Cord Himelstein, vice president of marketing and communications, Michael C. Fina.”
What’s your favorite way to share employee feedback? Leave an answer in the comments!
