Three Steps to a Culture of Feedback and Recognition: Part 3

When people understand how their behavior makes a difference to you and contributes to the organization's goals, they feel a greater sense of ownership, accountability, and pride. In fact, 69% of employees say they’d work harder if they were better appreciated. Employee recognition boosts morale, improves productivity, and is a key driver of employee engagement. However, creating a culture of feedback and recognition takes intentionality and patience. As we close out the month, we are rounding out our series around creating a culture of feedback and recognition and hopefully by now you've done two things:

1. Brought awareness to your barriers to giving feedback and recognition and perhaps even started knocking some of them down.
2. Identified the behaviors you want to create reinforcement around through feedback and recognition.

Our final step in building a culture of feedback and recognition is key as it's the step that brings impact and importance to the first two.

Step 3: Make Your Feedback Actionable

Meaningful feedback is actionable feedback and for it to be replicated it must come with a WHAT and a HOW. When giving actionable feedback, it's critical to tie the behavior or actions of the individual(s) back to WHAT was done that was so meaningful and HOW their contribution impacts the team and organization.

For instance, let's say Virginia, after noticing a gap in customer onboarding was leading to a reduction in application usage, took it upon herself to devise a solution and propose it to upper management. WHAT Virginia did was notice an opportunity for process improvement that would lead to better customer engagement and satisfaction during their initial onboarding process. Her solution would lead to higher product adoption at the onset of the customer's onboarding and HOW that impacts the team and the organization is multifold. Not only would customers realize their technology investment faster, but the customer success team would now have a process for better onboarding customers and showcasing the value. The organization would gain more raving fans of the product and hopefully follow-on referrals.

When you couple the WHAT and the HOW, the feedback becomes something employees can emulate as a model for success. By contrast, when feedback is too general it may lack credibility. By focusing on specific actions and efforts, you make your feedback actionable and its value as a learning tool skyrockets.

Giving recognition and actionable feedback requires commitment, practice, and planning. Be patient with yourself as you bring awareness to the art of giving feedback in a way that resonates with your team and motivates them to continue learning and stretching outside of their comfort zone. We're excited to see your culture of feedback and recognition take shape!