LEARNING
W
e live in a world where
feedback is all around us.
Whether as consumers,
businesspeople or simply
users of social media, it’s
become the norm for us to
give, receive and collect
‘follows’, ‘likes’, reviews and a
whole host of tech-enabled feedback as a routine part
of our everyday life. At work, too, with a move away from
command-and-control-style management to a more
collaborative, nuanced method, better attuned to the
psychological needs of knowledge-economy workers,
carefully calibrated feedback, designed to encourage
positive performance and behaviours, is more important
than ever.
For example, a 2018 SHRM/Globoforce Employee
Recognition Report showed that, for 81% of survey
respondents, a supportive feedback environment at
work is a key driver for growth and development.
It seems irrefutable that, when properly delivered,
workplace feedback is invaluable in helping people to
understand the contribution they’re making and to
navigate their own learning. These are important factors
when considering meaning and purpose at work.
The key phrase here is ‘properly delivered’; this is
one explanation, perhaps, for the extensive industry
and literature that has grown up to help us navigate
these challenging waters. It’s also clear that a range of
processes and models for delivering and receiving
feedback are increasingly under fire: annual
performance reviews and employee surveys that are
too process-driven, used infrequently and often in
isolation; 360° feedback that can all too easily become
an exercise in acrimony and revenge; tech-based,
real-time solutions that threaten to tip from feedback
into surveillance. It seems that you can have too much
of a good thing.
82 // Future Talent
L