How often do you receive feedback on your performance? For many, it’s like waiting for a bus – nothing for ages and then it all comes at once. You might receive it just once or twice a year during a performance appraisal or perhaps, if you’re really lucky, monthly or weekly during a team briefing.  In many organisations feedback is still associated with a formal appraisal process or annual event.  In fact, feedback given outside of these times might even go unnoticed because it’s not considered “formal”.

So how can feedback be given formally but at the same time be timely, focused and relevant?  How about making your employees primarily responsible for getting their own feedback, not annually but daily in real-time. For this to work, employees will need to adopt a common belief that it’s everyone’s responsibility to continually share and seek out helpful information. Employees need to feel empowered to comment on their colleagues’ performance … constructively, not critically. And, they should understand that it’s not only the manager’s responsibility to give feedback.  Surely, the receiver of the feedback will be more responsive to criticism or praise if they’ve initiated the request for feedback and surely it’s easier to give constructive feedback if it’s been asked for?

Generation Y are communicating constantly and expect instant answers.  When it comes to finding out how they’re doing at work, will they be content to sit back and wait for formal feedback to be given in a periodic review?  Unlikely …. Requesting and giving feedback daily and continuously is already part of their busy social networking life!