A guide to employee onboarding in fast-growing companies

Companies with an active onboarding program retain 91% of their hires after the first year and have employees who are 18 times more likely to feel committed to their employers.

7

min read

First impressions drive last impressions! 

Working with the generation of job hoppers — the millennials — how you onboard your employees decides their future in your company. A Gallup survey states that 6 out of 10 millennials are open to new job opportunities at any given time. 21% of them have changed jobs in the last 12 months. 

Millennials have become the consumers of the workplace. For leaders of a growing company, the challenge is not only to attract potential talent, but also to retain them for the long run. While the entire employee lifecycle is crucial to turn employees into brand ambassadors, employee onboarding i.e. the first 90 days sets the stage for success, or failure!

Companies that have an active onboarding program tend to retain 91% of their hires after the first year of joining. 

In this article we will cover everything you need to know about onboarding employees the right way.

What is onboarding?

Employee onboarding is more than just a formal introduction. To be effective, the onboarding process needs to cover all technical, social, cultural, and procedural aspects of hiring a new member.

A great onboarding process ensures that the employee fits in with the company brand image, workplace culture, mission, and meets the skill requirements for the chosen role.

It also sets out the tone for future interactions that happen between the employer and the employee. When employees are boarded well from day one, it tends to create a seamless integration into the existing workforce. In the long run, it increases the employee's productivity and supports employee retention.

Before we dive deeper into the onboarding process, let us first look at the cost of poor employee onboarding on an organization.

What are the consequences of poor onboarding?

Often the results of poor onboarding are not evident at the start of employment. The most visible result of poor onboarding is high employee churn or attrition. 

In a fast-growing company, time is money and bandwidth is low. Therefore, a high voluntary attrition rate not only increases the financial cost of employee acquisition, but also ends up wasting other people’s time and effort that could be used for high value activities. A culture of attrition also leads to poor morale at the workplace.

Here’s what happens when employees are not onboarded properly — 

Low productivity

UrbanBound found that of all the employees who did not meet their performance goals in the first year, 50% did not receive a formal onboarding. With new employees that are not started with the right tools tend to take more time to familiarize themselves with the new work environments. This could mean that a substantial time of the hiring is spent learning things that could have been tackled at the onboarding plan. Something as simple as operating a coffee machine needs to be part of any onboarding efforts. Small steps like these do show the employee that people care and make them feel comfortable. 

Chance of failure

When the hirings' expectations are not in sync with the work settings, it could lead to frustrations and lack of interest in the work assigned. The chances of such employees seeking other avenues cannot be ruled out, which could lead to workers' failures.

Churn

It has been noticed that firms that have a good onboarding process tend to have less churn of employees. Thus, the cost incurred in having an effective onboarding program would be offset by the savings accrued in reducing the hiring of new employees. In addition, studies have indicated that 20% of new hiring churn occurs during the first 45 days, and having an effective onboarding plan reduces this significantly.

Low morale

Often, the reason for low confidence of the employee is feeling isolated and unsupported. A lack of understanding of the new employee’s expectations from the employer and the job (such as career development opportunities) leads to low employee engagement due to low morale. This eventually leads to employees looking for other job opportunities soon.

Branding

A high attrition rate of new employees creates a poor image of the company they are working in. Today, 84% of employees say that they may leave their jobs if they receive an offer from a company with an excellent employer reputation. 

For fast growing companies, a poor employee brand image is quickly propagated across the industry, making further hiring hard to do or more expensive to achieve.

On the other hand, taking the time or care to onboard employees can lead these amazing benefits.

The advantages of an effective onboarding program

1. Increased Retention

According to research, about 86% of employees decide whether they want to stay with the company in the long run or not in the first 6 months. An effective onboarding would mean that employees have lesser chances of leaving in the first year at work. This significantly cuts down on employee costs and leads to better productivity at the office. 69% employees are more likely to stay with an organization for 3 years, if they experience great onboarding. A great first impression definitely goes a long way!!

2. Increased productivity

Companies that tend to have a good onboarding schedule tend to report up to 50% better new hire productivity at the workplace with happier and fulfilled employees most of the time. When expectations are clear, goals are set, resources are distributed well, it leads to higher productivity. 

The cost incurred in new employee onboarding is often offset by a better return on investment. Most clients report having a satisfying experience while interacting with the companies having an effective onboarding program.

3. Better revenue

Naturally, happier customers equals higher revenue. When employees are happy and engaged, they go the extra mile in their roles to improve the company's profitability. This could mean increased revenue of up to 60%. There seems to be a greater focus on the new hiring than places without an onboarding process.

4. Better relationship with the team and managers

The top driver of a high performance team is psychological trust. Gallup research says that 75% of employees leave due to poor relationships with their bosses.

Taking the time to build a comfort zone for new hires in the workplace builds relationships beyond mechanical workplace transactions. Frequent check-ins, 1:1s, all hands in the initial days reduces initial isolation and creates a sense of belonging which further results in high employee engagement.

5. Seamless integration to company culture

62% companies say that the primary objective of employee onboarding is to integrate them into the organizational culture. Because ultimately, a company culture is what drives employee performance, engagement, and overall experience.

Especially, in hyper growth companies, integrating new employees into the culture soon and well minimizes the risk of quick attrition. Thus saving time and resources on rehiring.

Now let’s look into what a standard employee onboarding process looks like in a hyper growth company.

Employee onboarding in fast growing companies

For fast growing companies recruiting and retaining top talent is a challenge in itself. Today new employees want a customized onboarding experience to feel connected to their new place of work. With more companies opting for a remote or hybrid workplace model since the pandemic, onboarding has become more challenging. 

While fast-growing companies or scaling start-ups may not be able to provide the high brand value or bigger financial rewards to the new joinees, hypergrowth companies can indeed offer them the excitement of being part of a bigger purpose that the big companies often fail to provide. Make sure to capitalize on this when onboarding a new employee.

Being a fast-growing company, your onboarding program must include the following — 

  • Sell your company culture. Let the new employees know the story behind the company and the brand.
  • Share your bigger visions and goals that you want to accomplish as an organization. 
  • Introduce the employee to the new co-workers and partners that he is going to work with. Focus on building camaraderie between team members.
  • Set out expectations for employee performance and evaluation clearly. Use OKRs for better alignment of goals with purpose.
  • Ensure that the employee complies with company policies and procedures.

Employee onboarding best practices 

Integrating a fresh joinee to the existing company culture usually takes about 3 months and introduction to resources, company handbook, and people they need to have access to for doing their job well.

1. Mapping the onboarding process

The onboarding process must be clearly laid out to the employee to the best extent possible. It is essential to have a timeline — from the time a person is hired to when he is joining the organization. It is useful to break the onboarding journey into the first 30-60-90 days and set clear objectives for each period. Every employee is unique and has their own unique needs and expectations. Engage people ahead of time to customize the onboarding process for them when they join.

2. Using introductory videos

All it takes is a smartphone and a video clip about the people with whom the new employee will be working on setting the tone for the first few weeks at the new workspace. It really doesn't cost much and can significantly impact the employee than a series of lectures or PowerPoint presentations. If you are working remotely, using Zoom, Google Meet for video conferencing, 1:1s, or weekly all hands, or recording instructions in Loom goes a long way to eliminate the feeling of alienation. Guided 1:1s are extremely crucial to troubleshoot any problem new hires are facing and build a feedback culture.

3. Getting feedback on the onboarding process

The best place to start charting out onboarding process steps is with the employees already with an organization. By seeking out feedback on their experience and integrating the views and thoughts of the employees go towards making a good onboarding program. Also, ask for continuous feedback from the new joinee, especially during the first 90 days, to understand the pain points and solve accordingly before they snowball into bigger problems that lead to untimely resignation.

4. Set clear expectations

It is important for the new hiring to understand what the management expects from him more so in fast growing organizations where roles might often overlap. In return, the worker must be given an idea as to what to expect from the employer. Let them know how the performance metrics they will be measured against. The matching of expectations properly can lead to a more satisfied group of employees and a smoother employee-employer relationship. 

5. Look into the small details.

An effective onboarding plan is often set apart by the attention to the fine details rather than the big points. For instance, most new employees would know all about the product portfolio of the new company and if an effort is made to manage the daily commute to the place of work, it would go a long way towards making their stay at the workplace comfortable and stress-free.

6. Communicate more

The onboarding process must not be a single flow of information but a closer interaction between the new employee and the management. This would set the tone for future cooperation between the two and puts just the proper perspective on each other. 

7. The vision & culture

Most fast moving companies today tend to have a mission and vision statement. This would be meaningless unless it is conveyed effectively to the new employees. It helps new joiners interact with the existing employees to understand how the promoters' vision is being put to actually work.

Employee Onboarding Checklist

1. Goals and Vision

  • Clarify the role and how the employee fits into the organization. 
  • Review of the company and its products or services.
  • Targets that the company is seeking to achieve by quarter and annual.
  • Specify performance metrics, KPIs, and OKRs clearly

2. How The Firm Operates

  • Let the new hire know work-rules (working hours, meetings, daily operations)
  • Set out company values and guiding principles.
  • Share the company policies regarding various activities.
  • Inform of the perks and benefits that can be expected from the company.

3. Tools

  • Introduce to the employee the various tools that would be required to do the work.
  • Collaboration and communication tools. (e.g., Slack, Asana, etc.)
  • HR and payroll systems
  • Physical Setup (laptop, mobile, WFH Setup, etc.)

4. Access to resources

  • Provide relevant reading materials.
  • Organize one-on-one coaching sessions to accelerate learning.
  • Give access to important websites, tools, software needed for work.

5. Access to people

  • Introduce new workers to the office and specifically to the individuals that he would be interacting with.
  • Get the hiring to know his immediate supervisors and seniors.

6. Setting expectations

  • Set the short-term goals first.
  • Give out plans and targets for the 30-, 60-, and 90-day time periods.
  • Schedule frequent one-on-one with an immediate supervisor.

7. Social inclusion

  • Provide a sense of belonging with the rest of the company.
  • Assign an onboarding partner or work buddy.
  • Introduce the new employee to the rest of the company.
  • One-on-ones with people that the hiring would be interacting closely.
  • Access to company social channels and group events.
  • Update the company website with the new employee details.

Conclusion

As has been laid down in the book, “The Alliance”, by  Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh, “The importance of onboarding is significantly increased these days since the average turnover at work is less than four years and lifetime employment strategies are out of date.”

Onboarding new employees, especially in a remote set-up, is challenging. Using specialized software for this purpose often streamlines the process. However, you must remember that onboarding is about building connections with the new member, making them a part of the team, and eliminating the initial feelings of isolation. Tools can help with the systematic processes, but how you treat them is what ultimately determines the success of onboarding.

Be warm. Be kind. Be supportive.

Suggested reading:

Dashboard and Onboarding Basics for Admins

8 Ways to Improve Employee Engagement

Like what you read? Now see it in action in your team, book a free demo with our experts today!

Dhanashree Jadhav

Community, SuperBeings

Hi! I am Dhanashree. I'm currently building a super community for talent management folks to gain knowledge and share experiences at SuperBeings

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Engagement
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50+ Most Useful Employee Onboarding Survey Questions

‘Onboarding: How to get your new employees up to speed in half the time’ - George Bradt, founder and Chairman PrimeGenesis

Did you know that a strong onboarding process improves new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%? 

However, only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job at onboarding new employees. 

This clearly states that while employee onboarding has a direct impact on the bottom line, most organizations miss out on how to get it right. 

Don’t let that happen to you. To onboard new employees like a pro, keep reading.

What is an onboarding survey?

By definition, an onboarding survey is a questionnaire that is administered on new hires to gauge their initial experience and level of satisfaction, in an attempt to understand their engagement and retention potential. 

As an HR, you can get multiple insights from an onboarding survey, including:

  • what employees thought about the organization when they heard about it for the first time
  • how their impression changed over time 
  • whether or not their experience aligns with their expectations, etc.

It can help you estimate how long the employees are likely to stay and how you can further optimize your onboarding process to make it more aligned with employee expectations. 

Why are onboarding surveys important?

An effective onboarding survey can help you reflect on your performance through the onboarding process, which directly impacts KPIs for organizational success, including:

1. Retention

93% of employers believe a good onboarding experience is critical in influencing a new employee’s decision whether to stay with the company. At the same time, 25% of a company’s new hires would leave within a year if the onboarding experience was poor. 

2. eNPS

20% of new hires are unlikely to recommend an employer to a friend or family member and an onboarding survey can help you identify the reasons for the same. However, new team members who were asked to provide feedback prior to their start date also had a 79% increase in willingness to refer others. Thus, illustrating how onboarding surveys and feedback can impact eNPS.

Read: How to use eNPS for better employee engagement

3. Satisfaction and Engagement

Employees with exceptional onboarding experiences are 2.6x more likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace and 70% say they have ‘the best possible job’.

4. Performance

77% of employees who went through a formal onboarding process were able to meet their first performance goals. However, 49% of individuals who failed to reach their first performance milestone had no official onboarding instruction. An onboarding survey can help you determine the effectiveness of your onboarding process.  

5. Other

In addition, your new employees might also have an inclination towards providing feedback as a part of the onboarding survey, which you will lose out if you don’t conduct the same. Research shows that only 26% of new employees recall being asked for feedback on their candidate journey and the hiring process before their start date wherein 91% of new hires are willing to provide this feedback. 

Employee onboarding survey: Best practices

Now that you understand the importance of an employee onboarding survey, let’s quickly discuss how to effectively run an onboarding survey. 

1. Set the cadence

You must coincide your employee onboarding survey with important milestones for the new employee in the organization. Mostly, these milestones coincide with the end of the first few months. Thus, you should circulate your onboarding survey after 30, 60 and 90 days respectively, with different objectives for each. Furthermore, you can send interim surveys in case you feel the need, for instance, when the employee starts a project, or when the orientation process is over. 

“Effective employee onboarding isn’t about swag, stickers, & company value pamphlets on their desk the 1st day. But, how you help them understand their goals & how co values are interwoven in operating are more important.”- Suhail Doshi, founder and chairman of Mixpanel, Inc.

2. Identify critical areas and build questions

Based on the milestones or cadence you have set up, it is important to identify areas you would want to cover with each milestone. For instance:

In the first 30 days, you should focus on themes like: 

  • Orientation process
  • Initial thoughts
  • Expectation alignment 
  • Recruitment process
  • Onboarding experience

In 60 days, you can touch on themes like:

  • Knowledge transfer
  • Level of engagement and satisfaction
  • Induction process

By the end of 90 days, focus should shift towards:

  • Manager support
  • Role clarity
  • Likelihood to stay
  • Organizational alignment

Once you have decided the themes, you can start building questions, a snapshot of which is covered in the next section or you can download the template now here. The themes can be fluid across milestones, depending on the context for your organization. 

3. Roll out the survey for participation

Once the milestone arrives, you should roll out the onboarding survey and drive participation. It is important to explain to your new employees why the onboarding survey is important and how they can fill it up. Give them the requisite time, deadlines and communicate what will be the next steps to encourage them to participate. 

4. Follow up

Simply rolling out the survey is not enough. You must reach out to your new employees to remind them to fill the onboarding survey as amidst numerous new things, they might lose track of it. Don’t push too hard, yet send subtle reminders to get genuine responses. For instance: employee survey tools such as SuperBeings integrate with chat tools like Slack, Teams, Gchat to send personalized nudges to fill out the survey in the flow of work at set intervals as well as allows them to participate directly without switching context. 

Unlock a wide array of survey questions and employee analytics. See how SuperBeings can help

5. Take action

Once your onboarding survey responses are in, slice and dice them to get insights into what your employees feel and leverage the data points to further refine your onboarding process to facilitate engagement, retention and advocacy from the beginning. 

Sample onboarding survey questions for 30-60-90 day review

Taking cue from the section above, here are 50+ onboarding survey questions that you can leverage to gauge the pulse of your new employees as they complete different milestones.

You can also download these questions as a template and use it whenever you need. Click here to download

1. Onboarding survey questions for 30 day review

a) Onboarding and orientation process

  1. How can we change or improve the onboarding process?
  2. What did you like most about the onboarding process?
  3. Was the orientation interactive and engaging?
  4. Did the onboarding process meet your expectations?
  5. Do you feel welcome and proud to be working here?
  6. How would you rate the duration and quality of your onboarding experience?
  7. How would you describe your first day?

b) Decision related questions

  1. What were the top 3 reasons for joining this company?
  2. Do you think those reasons have been met?

c) Technical training and knowledge transfer

  1. Have you received the training that you were promised during your induction?
  2. Did the training meet your expectations and was accurately described during the hiring process?
  3. Is the training relevant to your roles and responsibilities?
  4. Were adequate tools and materials shared during training to facilitate knowledge transfer?

2. Onboarding survey questions for 60 day review

a) Engagement related questions

  1. Would you recommend the company to others in your network?
  2. Do you see yourself working here in 2 years?
  3. Do you feel motivated to come to work in the morning?
  4. Do you feel prepared for your role?

b) Onboarding experience

  1. Did the first 30 days of onboarding go as expected?
  2. What is the one thing you would like to change from your experience so far?

c) Company policies

  1. Are you clear on the different company policies shared with you?
  2. Do you have any concerns about any of the policies that you would like to highlight?
  3. Do you think any policy is missing that you think must be a part of our governance?

d) Questions about team

  1. Have your team members been integral in smooth onboarding?
  2. Have you been able to connect and collaborate with all your team members?
  3. Do you consider your team members to be welcoming and inclusive?
  4. What is the thing you would like to change about how your team works currently?

e) Reflection questions

  1. Have you been able to achieve the goals you set out for your 60 days?
  2. How has your journey been so far?
  3. What has been your biggest accomplishment in 60 days?
  4. What are some achievements you would like to ensure in the next 30 days?

3. Onboarding survey questions for 90 day review

a) Role and expectation clarity

  1. Do you have an understanding of what is expected from you as a part of this role?
  2. Is your role similar to what was communicated to you during the hiring process?
  3. Do you have the necessary resources you need for the role?
  4. Do you have clarity of your goals?
  5. Do you understand how your work will be evaluated?
  6. Does your role meet your career aspirations?
  7. What do you think is the most difficult part about your role?
  8. What excites you most about your current role?
  9. Do you understand the importance of the work you do?

b) Organizational alignment

  1. Do your values align with the organizational values?
  2. Do you believe in the vision and mission of the organization?
  3. Do you believe your ideas are valued?
  4. Do you have clarity on the organization’s future plans and do you align with them?
  5. Do you see yourself as a part of this organization 5 years from now?

c) Manager support

  1. Have your conversations with the managers been effective?
  2. Does your manager support your career aspirations?
  3. Does your manager provide you with the necessary support to perform your role effectively?
  4. Do you receive regular feedback from your manager?
  5. Does your manager include you in key discussions, wherever applicable?

d) Other questions

  1. What are some of the challenges you have faced so far?
  2. Do you feel your onboarding was successful?
  3. How can we help you in improving the overall experience?
  4. Do you feel included and accepted by everyone in the team?
  5. How do you see yourself progressing from here?
  6. Do you have access to all the information you need?

Wrapping up (TL:DR)

By now, it would be very clear to you that an employee onboarding survey can help you in multiple ways to create a high performance culture. It can enable you to augment retention, engagement, satisfaction and advocacy among employees to ensure that there is minimal turnover and you are able to attract high quality talent. Ensure that you roll out an onboarding survey at 30/60/90 days frequency to check onboarding experience, knowledge transfer, manager support, role clarity, etc. 

You should focus on other forms of employee feedback on culture, training and development opportunities, level of engagement, manager effectiveness, workplace collaboration, work-life balance, among others. 

Finally, you should focus on leveraging technology and automation to add efficiency and effectiveness to your onboarding survey and process. 

Research shows, automating onboarding tasks resulted in a 16% increase in retention rates for new hires.

Thus, consider partnering with a survey platform which enables you to:

  • Use science-backes best practices onboarding survey templates
  • Track employee milestones automatically and roll out surveys on due date with zero to minimal manual intervention 
  • Integrate surveys with existing chat tools for reminders and sending out survey questions
  • Use NLP for decoding sentiments behind open comments to understand the reason behind each response
  • Use other employee engagement surveys to get the whole picture of new hire engagement

Related Reading

How to use employee engagement survey comments

Best employee engagement survey tools in the market today

Performance
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How to Give Constructive Feedback? (With Examples)

When it comes to performance management for employees, you would agree that feedback plays an important role. However, only offering positive feedback and appreciating the performance of your employees is not enough. You need to give them an equal amount of constructive feedback which is specific to ensure high levels of performance. If you feel that your employees may not embrace constructive feedback, think again.

Research shows that 92% of people believe that constructive feedback is effective at improving performance.

In this article we will help you understand how you can give constructive feedback and examples you can leverage. 

What is constructive feedback?

Constructive feedback is essentially a tool that most forward looking professionals leverage to help others in their team with specific and constructive inputs on areas where one’s performance can be improved. Put simply, if you have an employee who doesn’t pay attention to detail, constructive feedback involves helping them acknowledge that this is a problem area, and more than that, enabling them with the support to overcome the same. It involves not only identifying a performance problem, but also, providing action items and ways to address the same. 

Importance of constructive feedback

Now that you have an understanding of what constructive feedback means, let’s quickly look at some of the top reasons why constructive feedback is important. Constructive feedback:

  • Improves performance: It enables your team members to understand how they can perform better with specific inputs on areas of improvement
  • Reinforces expectations: It helps your employees clearly gauge what is expected out of them in terms of performance, and sets clear deliverables and measurement parameters to avoid any surprises during performance appraisal
  • Boosts morale and confidence: It involves also appreciating employees for a job well done and illustrates how they can become a better version of themselves
  • Facilitates employee stickiness: It ensures that employees see your organization which cares about their professional growth and encourages them to stick around longer, and even act as advocates for others.

Positive feedback vs constructive feedback 

When delivering feedback, you must understand the difference between positive and constructive feedback and ensure that you use both of them where they fit the best. Here a quick distinction between positive feedback vs constructive feedback:

  • Positive feedback focuses on a job well done and highlights where an employee has excelled. Whereas, constructive feedback talks about areas of improvement and action items for desirable outcomes. 
  • While positive feedback seeks to reinforce the positive behavior, constructive feedback focuses more on facts and traits.
  • Positive feedback is a reflection of the past performance and doesn’t necessarily have a futuristic orientation, however, constructive feedback takes reference from the past to feed better performance in the future.  
  • “Your presentation during the board meeting was crisp and informative” is an example of positive feedback. Whereas, “While your presentation was informative, you can focus more on articulation to ensure that all your research is communicated in a way that everyone is able to understand. Using pointers can help here”, is an example of constructive feedback.
In a nutshell, positive feedback is a reinforcement tool, whereas constructive feedback is a mechanism to facilitate development. 

How to give constructive feedback

With an understanding of the fundamentals of constructive feedback, let’s quickly jump to the best practices which can help you deliver constructive feedback in a nuanced and effective manner. 

1. Decide when to give the constructive feedback

The first thing you need to focus on is ensuring that the timing of the constructive feedback is ideal. For instance, a busy period when the employee is putting in a lot of effort may not be ideal for giving them feedback about their performance from three months ago. At the same time, ensure that you provide constructive feedback regularly and consistently, to avoid recency or primacy bias. However, don’t offer feedback when you are angry about their performance either. 

2. Set the context and build trust

Before you get down to giving the feedback, set the tone. Share with the employee the purpose of the meeting and make them comfortable prior to sharing your reflections. It is important that you build trust so your employees can share their perspective and don’t feel intimidated by what you have to say. 

3. Share your reflections

Once the context and tone is set, start sharing your reflections. Your focus should be on sharing what you have observed about their performance. However, ensure that you also share how the same is likely to impact their career growth as well as organizational success. For instance, if you are providing constructive feedback about missing deadlines, you can use the impact of losing clients for the organization and a casual attitude marker for the employee.

4. Give specific examples

When sharing reflections, use specific examples of when you noticed a particular behavior. For instance, in the above example, you can share instances of when the employee missed his/her deadlines. Ensure that you use examples which illustrate a pattern, rather than a one off incident, which is very uncommon. Furthermore, always use concrete examples and not interpretation of what you hear or see.   

5. Balance positive and negative

With constructive feedback, your focus should be on helping the employee improve their performance and work on their areas of development.

However, simply pointing out their weaknesses or negatives in their performance will not help. You need to also talk about some of the positive aspects of their performance and how those qualities can help them absorb and implement their constructive feedback. 

6. Be empathetic

Emotional intelligence is extremely important when delivering constructive feedback. You cannot be apathetic towards your employee when delivering the same. Put yourself in their shoes to choose your phrases carefully. We will share some examples in the next section. Also, use your EQ to read the situation when you are delivering the feedback. If you see that the employee is getting uncomfortable, take a pause and comfort them first. Read their gestures and body language to ensure that the employee is not feeling attacked. 

7. Don’t make it personal

Like it or not, constructive feedback involves pointing out one’s weaknesses and areas of improvement. However, you should refrain from equating the performance of the employee with his/her personality or whole self. For instance, if someone misses deadlines, encourage them to be more organized or prioritize important work, than labeling them as a procrastinator. 

8. Encourage response from the other side

While you are delivering the constructive feedback, you have to make sure it is a dialogue.

The idea is to give the other person enough room to share their side of the story.

Try to understand whether or not they agree with your feedback and how they perceive the same. They may share the lack of support or resources, which have resulted in a weak performance. Be open to some reverse feedback as well. Again, your EQ must be at play here. If your employee has an outburst, or reacts negatively, you need to stay composed and calm them down. 

9. Discuss potential solutions

Once you and your employee are aligned on the areas of improvement, the most important part of constructive feedback is to provide adequate solutions to address the performance challenges. Don’t give abstract or vague solutions like be punctual if the employee misses deadlines. Rather, give very specific and action oriented solutions which are directed towards a particular outcome. The idea is to collectively understand the cause of the weak area of performance and use concrete solutions to remedy the same. 

10. Create a time bound action plan

Now that you have shared some potential solutions, you must revise the top action items with your employee to avoid any confusion. At the same time, you should focus on creating a time bound plan with key milestones to ensure that development is taking place. Summarize what was discussed and how you will proceed from there. Best is to set up a date to review the progress to ensure constructive feedback is paid heed to. 

Read our article on Start Stop Continue Feedback to give action oriented feedback

20 Constructive feedback examples 

Here are top 20 constructive feedback examples that you can use during your next conversation. To make your constructive feedback more effective, we have also illustrated examples of what you should steer away from.

1. Communication skills

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I would really like to know how you have progressed on the tasks assigned to you last month. It would be ideal if you could share a progress update on what has been achieved with a small summary of challenges/ support needed at the end of every week to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You have not kept your team updated about your work, this is highly unprofessional.

2. Attention to detail

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I was going through the work you submitted last week and I can see you have put in a lot of effort. However, I could see that there were some small errors and inaccuracies in the report across multiple sections. I believe that if you proofread your work thoroughly before turning it in, it will reduce the number of iterations and improve your quality of work. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You seem completely distracted as you have been submitting flawed and below average work, this will not be tolerated. 

3. Time management

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I understand that you are working on multiple projects, however, you need to ensure that the most important projects are not overlooked and their timelines are not missed. Therefore, I would suggest you create a list of tasks you are working on and check with the respective reporting managers on the priority and set clear expectations to ensure that no deadlines are missed. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You have missed your deadline again, it seems like you are not serious about you work. 

4. Goal achievement

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I see that you have been able to achieve only a part of the goals that you set out for this year. Maybe you were trying to spread yourself too thin. I would suggest you reduce the number of projects you are working on and ensure that the goals you set you are able to achieve. Furthermore, you must be vocal about the support or resources you need to achieve your goals. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

Are you even serious about your work, your level of goal achievement indicates otherwise. 

5. Absenteeism

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I see that you have been taking some time off lately, without any prior intimation. Let’s try to understand if there is a particular reason for the same. We can work on your schedule to make it more flexible. 

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You have been missing all meetings lately, this tardiness is not appreciated. 

6. Problem solving

Example of how to give constructive feedback

I see that you are excellent at execution of ideas. However, I believe that you need to focus more on coming up with solutions on your own. I would suggest participating more in the brainstorming sessions and coming up with solutions. Try to think on your own, before you reach out to others with the problem.

Example of how not to give constructive feedback

You lack any problem solving capabilities, and will be stuck to execution for the rest of your career.

Wrapping up

Constructive feedback is integral to organizational success. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Always use facts and examples to deliver constructive feedback
  • Don’t forget to differentiate between positive and constructive feedback
  • Make sure you have practical tips or suggestions 
  • Leverage specific constructive feedback examples for specific performance problems, instead of being vague

Related Reading

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Performance
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How to Use Performance Management Cycle for High Performance Teams

While performance management has been a key priority for organizations, for a long time, year end reviews were considered to be the most effective way to facilitate the same. However, recently organizations are observing a shift towards continuous performance management with an introduction of the performance management cycle. This article will focus on different aspects of the performance management cycle and how it enables unlocking the potential of high performance teams. 

What is a performance management cycle?

Before going into the diverse aspects, you should first understand what a performance management cycle essentially is. If you have an idea of what continuous performance management is, you’re already a step ahead in the understanding. Performance management cycle primarily is a way or a model in which you evaluate or focus on the performance of your employees throughout the year. The idea is to break down the different elements of employee performance into different stages and focus on them consistently. It starts with setting goals and ends with rewards for a job well done, which leads to setting of new goals and the performance management cycle resets.  

Understanding 4 stages of the performance management cycle

While you may want to divide your performance management cycle into any number of stages, mostly there are four stages. 

Planning

The first stage, at the very beginning of the performance management cycle, focuses on creating a plan for the performance ahead. The idea is to have a clear understanding on what your employee must achieve and how you will eventually review and evaluate them. During the planning stage, you and your team member, collectively should:

  • Set SMART goals of OKRs based on the performance expectations
  • Have clear KPIs or metrics which you will use for performance appraisal
  • Clarify how individual goals or OKRs contribute to organizational vision

Thus, the planning stage of the performance management cycle sets the tone for the year ahead and ensures there is clarity at all levels. 

Monitoring

Once the goals have been set in the planning stage, you enter the monitoring stage of the performance management cycle. This stage essentially focuses on ensuring that things are moving as planned. The idea is to ascertain that your team members are more or less on track for specific milestones outlined as a part of goal setting. Additionally, this stage will help you address any performance challenges that you may observe, sooner than later. Monitoring stage includes:

  • Regular one-on-one meetings to review performance so far
  • Providing feedback to your team members on what you think has been going well and what needs to improve
  • Relooking at goals in case they are behind or ahead of schedule in terms of achievement
  • Understanding the kind of extra support or resources your team members might need to improve their performance
  • Having candid conversations with your employees on wellbeing, professional development objectives, and other factors which may impact performance, morale and engagement 

The monitoring stage essentially focuses on tracking the performance of your employees against the set goals to provide constructive feedback and help them perform better. 

Reviewing

The third stage of the performance management cycle comes into existence towards the end. It involves reviewing the performance and providing ratings based on the established KPIs and metrics. While this is the formal review process, if you have been constantly monitoring the performance of your employees, this will essentially be a consolidation of all the reviews and feedback shared overtime. While delivering performance reviews, ensure that you:

  • Shed any performance review biases that might come your way, including primacy effect, recency bias, halo/horns effect, etc. 
  • Give your employees concrete examples and facts to support your review, rather than being vague and ambiguous
  • Should try to get 360 degree feedback and review for your team members
  • Answer some of the following questions to create an informed review:
  1. Did the employee achieve the goals set out?
  2. What were the key enablers in their achievement?
  3. Did you observe growth in the employee during the performance management cycle?
  4. Did the employee share any concerns, and were they addressed?

Since you have been connecting regularly with your employees, the reviews will not come as a surprise to them, but will help you monitor the trends of their performance and guide the next stage for the employee’s professional growth. 

Rewarding

Finally, the rewarding stage in the performance management cycle acts as a culmination to one cycle and sets stage for the commencement of the next. The objective is to take into account their performance over the performance management cycle and create a culture of rewards and recognition to celebrate and appreciate high performance. Some of the quick ways to reward your employees include, giving them:

  • Healthy increments and promotions
  • Public appreciation through social media, company intranet
  • Bonuses and other incentives
  • Rewards like vouchers, gifts, etc. 

This stage is important to make your employees feel valued and motivate them to keep the performance going. It will also push average performers to step up their efforts and enable you to create a high performance culture. 

Why is a performance management cycle important?

Now that you understand the various stages of a performance management cycle, let’s quickly look at why the performance management cycle is important for your organization. It will help you:

  • Clearly define goals and expectations from your employees to drive directed performance.
  • Keep your employees engaged. When you constantly connect with your employees for 1-o-1 meetings and consistently take interest in their performance improvement, they are likely to feel engaged, satisfied and motivated.
  • Address performance challenges preemptively and provide your employees with corrective actions, resources and support to bridge performance issues.
  • Retain talent as employees who feel that their performance is being valued and receive regular feedback tend to stay longer at an organization. 

Top 4 ways in which performance management cycle leads to high performance

In addition to the above mentioned benefits, a performance management cycle can help you build a high performance culture in a number of ways. Some of the top aspects include:

Clarifies KPIs and metrics

What constitutes high performance can be abstract. For some, closing 5 deals can be high performance, for others, it might be closing 15. Planning stage in the performance management lifecycle will help your employees understand what constitutes high performance and thus, proceed towards it. 

Boosts recognition

A key part of the performance management cycle is the rewards and recognition. When employees feel their performance is being valued and recognized, they tend to double up their efforts, leading to a high performance team.

Facilitates communication and feedback

Monitoring and tracking followed by 1-o-1 conversations can help you communicate with your employees regularly. Not only will you track their performance, but will also listen to their concerns or challenges and offer them feedback. Such conversations and feedback have a positive impact on performance, leading to a high performance culture. 

Ensures appropriate training

One of the foundations of high performance is enabling your team members to undergo the right training. Performance management cycle can help you understand which training is important for your employees at which performance stage, realizing high quality results. 

Top tips for managers for effective performance management cycle

As a manager, there are several ways in which you can unlock the true potential of a performance management cycle. You are one of the key stakeholders who plays an important role in every stage of the cycle. Here are a few tips that can help you augment the effectiveness of the performance management cycle:

  • Invite employee participation and make the OKR setting process collaborative and action oriented
  • Provide constructive feedback to your employees, instead of being too sweet or too negative
  • Help your employees access the right resources and training they need to meet their goals
  • Give your employees a safe space to share their concerns and challenges
  • Don’t micromanage your employees in the name of monitoring
  • Be open about relooking at the goals in case of a misalignment as you move along the performance management cycle

Benefits of using a performance management tool

A performance management tool can significantly help you streamline your performance management cycle by offering the following benefits. 

Performance snapshots

Get automated performance snapshots of your employee’s performance over the 9 box grid to track performance trends over time and provide reviews without recency bias.

1:1 conversations

Leverage guided templates with AI based suggestions for your 1:1 conversations with employees during the monitoring stage based on performance over time. Receive suggested talking points for goal-centered conversations.

Compare performance

Look at historic feedback to see improvement in performance and compare performance over time. You can also compare performance of peers over specific parameters. 

Related Reading

How to create a high performance culture using OKRs

7 steps to effective performance management system

12 common performance review biases to avoid

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