As we enter the second half of the year, it’s time to think about how you’re setting your team members up for success and keeping them motivated to achieve their 2024 goals. The key? Clear, intentional feedback.
Whether or not your organization has formal mid-year reviews, the halfway mark is a crucial time to take a strategic pause, course-correct, celebrate wins, and provide your team members with clear direction to ensure a more successful H2. With only 26% of employees feeling they receive regular, meaningful feedback, per TINYPulse, you have the power to bridge that gap on your team.
So, how should you navigate mid-year feedback talks?
Come prepared
Feedback-related conversations can be intimidating for your employees, so it's important to prepare for the conversations. Before each one-on-one meeting, take some time to review your team members’ overall performance, key contributions, strengths, and shortcomings. Come ready with notes, specific examples that you can reference to support your points, questions to engage them in the discussion, and potential goals for the rest of the year. This level of preparation demonstrates your commitment to their success and sets the stage for a productive and empowering conversation.
Align expectations
Start the feedback conversation by explaining the purpose and walking them through how the meeting is going to work. Emphasize that the goal is to align expectations, address what’s working and where things can improve, create space for open communication, and most importantly, set your team members up for success. Make it clear that this is a dialogue, not a lecture, and that you really want to hear from them as well throughout the conversation. By fostering a two-way exchange, you'll gain valuable insights into their perspective and can collaboratively chart a course for a thriving second half of the year.
Focus on behaviors, not traits
Try to frame your feedback around your employees’ behaviors, as opposed to their characters. Critiquing behaviors is less personal and more solvable – they can be changed or repeated –, making it way more productive and useful to your team members. For example, telling your employee that they are “too aggressive” or “overly judgmental” doesn’t provide any meaningful direction or guidance for how to improve. Instead, saying, “Try asking more questions before critiquing others’ work” or “Try not to interrupt people when they’re sharing their ideas” is less personal and more achievable as it gives real tips and guidance on how to act.
Don’t linger on examples
While it’s helpful to share examples that give context to your feedback, it can also open the door to defensiveness and lead your team members to focus too heavily on the specific scenario you mentioned, rather than actually processing your point. So, instead of getting caught up in the past, do your best to frame your feedback around how things can work better in the future. Language like “from now on” and “next time” helps promote a forward-thinking mindset and ensures your message resonates.
Emphasize successes
Remember that feedback isn’t just about pointing out when things go wrong – it can also be an extremely effective way to highlight what’s working and the kinds of behaviors your employees should continue. So, do your best to give your employees positive feedback when you believe they’ve done something really well. Doing so not only instills confidence in them, it also reframes feedback as a mechanism for helping them maximize their performance as opposed to just being a scary thing that only comes up when there’s an issue.
Acknowledge your role
If we’re truly honest with ourselves, we can admit that if someone on our team didn’t meet the mark or deadline, more often than not, there were likely certain things that we, as leaders, could have done to prevent the misstep. You play a part in your employee outcomes, so when you discuss areas to grow and improve, try to use inclusive language like “we” and “us” to make it clear that you hold yourself accountable too. And when relevant, try and brainstorm strategies that address your role as well, even if it’s as simple as you checking in more or scheduling a meeting to set expectations before a big project. This approach makes the feedback feel less like an attack on your team member and instills a more collaborative, proactive mindset.
Discuss growth paths
Nearly 80% of surveyed employees would be more likely to stay with their company long-term if it offered effective training and development opportunities, per online education platform edX, so use these feedback sessions as an opportunity to discuss your employees’ growth and development paths within the team and company. Take this time to understand what your team members are looking for in their roles and the kinds of skills they want to acquire. Then, set goals and explore opportunities for the rest of the year that reflect both professional growth and collaborative, team-oriented objectives.
