Developing a Feedback Culture That Sticks

Giving constructive feedback can be a challenge, especially when we are told that “If we don’t have anything nice to say, we shouldn’t say anything at all.” But providing clear and specific feedback to employees is necessary to develop a culture that allows for healthy debate, creativity, psychological safety, and the ability for employees to grow in their careers.  

So what is feedback culture exactly? In a feedback culture, all employees are encouraged to share feedback and feel comfortable doing so regardless of their role within the organization. Everyone should understand that good feedback is specific and clear so that action can easily be taken to make improvements.

Why is Feedback Culture important? 

Having a strong feedback culture is important because it increases employee engagement, productivity, morale, and success in the company. On top of those positive attributes, a successful and healthy feedback culture fosters inclusivity where all employees have the psychological safety to share their opinions.

Developing a healthy feedback culture is especially important from the DE&I lens. As mentioned previously, fostering an honest feedback culture demonstrates a sense of psychological safety for employees. This sense of safety also creates an environment where employees will feel comfortable enough to share honest feedback on DE&I-related issues, encouraging growth and reflection within an org on their DE&I stance and policies. Therefore, feedback culture does not only contribute to high engagement and increased productivity throughout the org, it also contributes to creating conversations and discussions surrounding the DE&I aspect of the org.

5 ways to build a feedback culture that supports DE&I:

1. Provide feedback training 

For employees to be able to incorporate feedback culture seamlessly into their team culture, team leaders must demonstrate the ability to give and receive feedback. To normalize this practice, train managers on how to communicate feedback effectively. Once managers have mastered the skill, begin training everyone in the company. Include it in a company all-hands or in employee onboarding. Training can include examples of good and bad feedback through role-playing to help employees understand how to best give feedback.

2. Create a feedback-safe environment

It is important for employees to understand they are in a safe environment to share their feedback. Nurture an environment of psychological safety and make sure teams will not reject or punish someone for speaking up. A feedback-safe environment should provide a safe space and ensure employees do not face negative repercussions for their constructive feedback. This doesn’t mean everyone agrees when feedback is shared, an environment where healthy debate is encouraged is also important.

3. Set clear expectations

When developing a sustainable feedback culture, don’t just start throwing out feedback blindly. Create guidelines or organizational standards for what feedback should generally look like so there is a framework and set of expectations to guide the process. 

Feedback givers should think about these two things when giving:

• Clear roles: Who is giving feedback? Who is receiving feedback?

• Clear goal: What is the purpose of the feedback? What do you hope to achieve from your feedback? 

4. Make sure every level participates 

In order to develop a sustainable feedback culture, every level in the org should participate. This ensures a transparent communication channel for feedback to travel across all levels and demonstrates to your employees that the whole org believes in feedback culture and is willing to participate in it. Employees can also help get other employees involved by directly asking for feedback. 

Some ways to ensure an equal amount of participation are:

• Incorporating feedback sessions in meetings where every role is present

• Managers can ask employees growth-oriented questions to receive high-quality feedback that can benefit the organization 

• Increase the number of Performance Reviews throughout the year  to normalize feedback 

• Larger orgs can utilize employee surveys to collect all kinds of feedback for management to improve upon

5. Have questions prepared to optimize the feedback process 

If your organization does not have a set of guidelines for how to conduct feedback, it will be useful to prepare a list of questions to guide the process and ensure the feedback everyone receives is helpful. 

Some questions employees can consider asking their fellow team members or managers to engage in feedback culture:

• What positive attributes do I contribute to the team? 

• How would you (team members or managers) rate my performance in (specific area/role)?

• How can I improvise and provide even better support?

• What goals should I work towards in the next quarter?

• Do my team members think I interact well with them? 

6. Nurture positive and constructive feedback

Achieve a healthy balance between positive and constructive feedback. If you only focus on providing positive feedback it’ll inevitably devalue the praise and positive feedback you give. However, if you only focus on corrective and constructive criticism, you also risk undervaluing your employee and ignoring their positive attributes. So it is important to have a healthy grasp in the middle and allow both types of feedback to be conveyed equally to maintain a healthy balance. 

Don’t underestimate the power of a well-developed feedback culture. The value of interpersonal feedback within a workplace can have a great impact on an organization’s productivity, performance, and in creating a culture that values everyone. The consistent routine of providing positive and constructive feedback can foster a trusting, healthy, growth-oriented environment, allowing employees to achieve their goals and greatest potential while also allowing the organization to develop a culture that values diversity, equity, and inclusion.