The Importance of Feedback Starts with the Job Description

For managers to develop positive employee relations with their staff, it’s necessary to show your employees that you understand the importance of feedback.

Why Feedback is Important
There have been times when a manager will call me and say, “My employee is not doing the work they need to do.” My first question to them is, “What is the work that they need to do?” Then I ask if they’ve given the employee a job description. On most occasions, they have not.

Giving an employee a copy of their job description is the first thing a manager should do after hiring the employee. A job description is a form of feedback in the sense that it tells the employee what they need to do to be successful in their position.

When the manager hasn’t given the employee a job description, most of the time, it is because they do not have a job description written for that position. If they don’t, I assist them in putting together a comprehensive job description that details exactly what is expected of the employee.

Having a job description in writing clarifies what work is needed from the employee. In order to write out a job description, the manager must have a clear picture of what they want the employee to do and they must be able to describe it on paper. This is important because, if the manager cannot describe the work in writing, most of the time it is because the manager is not sure what the employee should be doing. As a consequence, the employee ends up with a vague idea of what they’re supposed to do or the employee ends up guessing.

Seeing the job duties on paper will help the manager and the employee make a commitment to it. It avoids overlooking essential work that needs to be accomplished and the written description allows the employee to refer back to it when necessary.

Sometimes, managers do not want to put the job description in writing because they feel that it limits what they can assign to the employee. This limitation can be addressed, if the written job description is done correctly. The upside of having a written job description outweighs any downside of not having one.

When Feedback Isn’t Provided
Another situation where feedback is often lacking is when it comes to following through about the job description.

After the manager has given the employee the written job description, the next question for the manager is, “How is/was the employee trained to do these duties?” If the manager simply tells the employee what needs to be done, the manager has not really done anything beyond reading the job description. That is not the true essence of training. Training involves, not only telling the employee what the work is, but also demonstrating the work. The demonstration does not need to be done by the manager himself/herself. A co-worker can be assigned to give the demonstration.

Training is also checking the employee’s initial work to verify that the employee did it correctly. Then, training also includes correcting the employee if the work was not done right during the initial phases. This aspect of checking and re-checking may take two or three repetitions to ensure that the employee is fully trained on the required task.

After the training phase, follow-through on the job description and giving feedback also includes telling the employee when they are doing the work correctly or incorrectly.

When I ask a manager if they went back to tell the employee if the work was done correctly or not, managers start to realize that part of the reason the employee isn’t performing the way they’re expected to may be because there was no follow-through. In other words, the manager may have neglected to give feedback to the employee.

I spend a lot of time guiding managers through the feedback process, and helping them realize what steps they omitted, in order to get an employee to understand his/her job duties.

Performance Evaluations Play a Major Part in Feedback
Performance evaluations, if done properly, give a good historical overview of an employee’s performance, and reinforce for the employee what they are doing right or wrong.

Sometimes managers will tell me, “I don’t do performance evaluations because they don’t serve any purpose.” It is unfortunate when the manager thinks this way because there are opportunities that will be missed, both for the manager and for the employee.

Performance evaluations are a tool the manager can use in a variety of ways. In addition to providing feedback, the performance evaluation can be used to identify goals for the employee to achieve. It can also be used as a developmental mechanism to move the employee to a higher level or role within the organization. Performance evaluations also support employment decisions related to promotions, raises and layoffs, to minimize exposure to risk or liability for the organization. Managers need to come to an understanding of why evaluations are so important, not only for themselves, but for employees, as well

When managers are willing to accept this, providing feedback becomes a success story, because the manager can see how it helps them work with employees and build more positive employee relations. 

For managers to develop positive employee relations with their staff, it’s necessary to show your employees that you understand the importance of feedback.