Creating a Culture of Feedback Between Co-Workers

Employee engagement is significantly impacted by how a firm integrates feedback into its culture. 

According to research, highly engaged organizations are likelier to implement feedback efforts, including one-on-one meetings, formal award programs, and annual staff surveys. According to numerous studies, rewarding employees boosts productivity and retention.

When it comes to aiding a merger transfer, lowering turnover, or enhancing business communication, organizations with a strong feedback culture enable their employees’ voices to lead company improvements. Additionally, when businesses pay attention to employee feedback, their bottom lines often improve.

Tips to Build a Feedback Culture

A feedback culture is intentionally designed; it doesn’t just happen. So how can you strengthen the culture of feedback to raise employee productivity? (freeunlocks) Here are some suggestions for creating a culture of feedback:

1. Inculcate a Mindset for Growth

Individuals with a growth mindset think they can improve their skills with commitment and effort. They value learning and see their natural talents as a place to start.

Positive feedback cultures value this way of thinking. They place a high emphasis on learning and growth and see feedback as a chance to get better. Furthermore, they demonstrate their worth by incorporating it into their operations rather than merely declaring it.

2. Impart Feedback Training

Feedback-giving and accepting our abilities. They need to be developed and practiced, just like any other skill. Provide your staff training and materials to help foster a feedback culture.

3. Set the Example Right from the Top

Employees are more inclined to follow suit and practice strong feedback practices when leaders set an example for them to follow. Your leaders must improve their capacity for providing and receiving feedback and serve as role models. 

They must recurrently solicit feedback (both vertically and horizontally within the hierarchy) and demonstrate clearly that they do so.

4. Build a Feedback-Safe Environment

A key component in fostering a feedback culture at work is having staff members who are prepared to provide candid feedback. Workers need to feel secure and understand that providing feedback won’t result in negative consequences.

Various workers will be more or less comfortable giving and accepting feedback. Being courteous and refraining from coercing feedback is crucial. If you can’t tell if someone is prepared to provide or receive feedback, use emotional intelligence to make a judgment call.

5. Make it a Routine

Perfectionism is attained via practice. Feedback becomes expected when it occurs frequently. It becomes a part of routine activities, and we get better at it.

Traditions, customs, behaviors, artifacts, and language are all components of culture. Seek out chances to establish these cooperative experiences for providing and receiving feedback.

Conclusion

A crucial instrument for allowing staff members to communicate their opinions and feedback to superiors is the upward review. Via their supervisors and leaders, they may use this to alter the organization for the better. Employees significantly raise their job satisfaction and their manager’s performance by implementing a culture of upward reviews.

About the Author

 Simon Chou is the Vice President of Operations and Growth at BCjobs.ca. Over the course of his career, he carved a niche in brand development, marketing strategy, and online presence for startups. Prior to joining BCJobs.ca, Simon was an advisor for several global blockchain projects including Litecoin, NEM, and Ripple. In the past, he also worked with Fortune 500 companies in the healthcare space through SM Digital—a global marketing agency.

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Managing Up Will Make You Happier at Work. Here’s What It Looks Like.

Quite often, in a workplace, employees feel disillusioned when they fail to understand the expectations of the managers. This creates challenges for the team as a whole in the long term. This is where the idea of managing up comes into the picture.

This article delves into what is managing up, effective ways to manage up, and more.

So, let’s get started.

What is Manage Up or Manage Upwards?

In essence, managing up refers to understanding your manager’s habits, preferences, goals, and expectations and working in a way that helps them achieve the objectives. It means focusing on the tasks necessary for them and completing the assigned activities on time so that their goals are not hampered. In other words, managing up refers to changing your behaviors and practices at work in a way that is beneficial and works well for your managers and the organization as a whole.

Effective ways to manage up

While there are countless ways you could help your managers, some great ways to manage up include:

Be aware of workplace priorities

Sometimes you might have a wonderful idea to implement. However, the workplace situation may require the strategies suggested by one of the teammates to be executed. In such cases, you must emphasize workplace priorities and stall your ideas for the future. This indicates your regard and concern for the workplace’s betterment.

Be transparent with your manager

You must be clear to your manager about your goals and areas of interest. That way, managers can ensure that they assign and allocate the appropriate tasks and responsibilities to you, which help your growth, and enable them to coach you as well. This would be ideal for your career path and for the company itself. 

Be clear and concise in messages

Managers may be bombarded with lots of work every day, including meetings, emails to respond to, and more. In case you wish to convey something important to them, keep it simple and straight. Don’t write a three-paragraph email that wastes their time and increases ambiguity. Write clear, crisp, and concise emails stating your problem/concern in a few lines in simple language.

Conduct thorough research before presenting an idea

To present an idea to your manager, thoroughly research first. This will help you in case your manager has doubts or questions about the feasibility. You will have detailed answers and can address their concerns. That way, your manager could decide quickly whether the idea can be implemented.

Balance your conversations on work-life balance

Besides the professional areas, spend time with your managers discussing personal interests, as this would create a stronger and more positive relationship. An example is when you ask the manager about their work, you may also enquire about their family or how they spend the weekends.

Wrapping up

Managing up is a vital philosophy that any employee needs to be conversant with. Adopt the ways outlined in the article to effectively manage up and build a long-lasting professional relationship with your managers.

About the Author

BCjobs.ca is Western Canada’s largest job board, and host of “Innovators” a weekly podcast interviewing top recruiters in BC and across Canada. Check out our recent interview with Inga Jonsdottir, Engineering Manager at Wealthsimple (Podcast link) and DataDome’s Chief Marketing Officer, Aurelie Guerierri (Podcast link).

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Paulo Oliveira came to our April 2017 Talent Day, where he met Anthony Azar (one of our Career Experts!) and the team from Traction on Demand. Thanks to this connection from Talent Day, Paulo found a developer role! Paulo recently moved to Vancouver, and Talent Day was the first networking event he went to. We asked Paulo and Anthony to share their Talent Day experiences with us – keep reading to get a look at Talent Day from both sides.

Please describe your experience at Talent Day.
At Talent Day, Paulo took his time to check all the companies attending the event, deciding which ones he would speak to. The event was busy, but “there was enough time to talk to all companies [he] was interested in”. Traction on Demand was the first company that he applied for, and the only one that he went from start to finish with through the recruiting process. While he had applied at a few different companies, the process at Traction on Demand was so smooth and efficient that he received an offer even before going to any other interviews.

What it was like to network and connect with great companies like Traction on Demand?
Paulo shared that “it was super easy to approach and speak to recruiters in each company’s booth,” and “they were very open to start a conversation with all present candidates”. Traction on Demand stood out in particular because Anthony “was very excited about Talent Day” and their booth was buzzing all night.

What was your experience at Talent Day like while representing Traction on Demand? 
Anthony: Talent Day gives us the opportunity to connect with a variety of great talent – often those who are new to the market – that have a variety of technical skills. We really appreciate the opportunity to get to know candidates in-person and chat with them about the great things that are happening at Traction on Demand.

What do you look for in candidates when you’re hiring?
Anthony: Traction on Demand’s hiring philosophy is based on culture, intelligence and then skills as we think that if someone is a great culture fit and has the aptitude to learn, then they can pick up many of the skills they might be missing. Salesforce.com talent is quite rare in Canada and so it has always worked better for us to look for great people to train, as opposed to searching for ramped salesforce.com talent. We are interested in people who want to join an active community of engaged individuals who see business as more than just a vehicle to make money. We care about our people, wider community and planet.

Want to connect with Traction on Demand? Read up on Anthony’s networking tips, check out their job postings, and learn more about their culture. Don’t forget to join our Tech Talent Meetup group in order to stay updated on future events like Career Experts Panels and Talent Days.

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Lorraine Boutin is a recent grad who came to Talent Day in April as part of her job search. At the event, she met the team from Drive Digital, where she got the chance to learn about their culture and found a front-end development role! Keep reading to learn more about Lorraine’s experience at Talent Day and life at Drive.

Please describe your experience at Talent Day.
Lorraine: Talent Day was great! I had seen many of the companies throughout my job searches and it was valuable being able to meet with them directly and give my resume and a sense of my skills in person. It was a very busy event, however I was able to meet with all of the companies I intended to.

What it was like to network and connect with great companies like Drive Digital?
Lorraine: Networking and connecting with companies at Talent Day was a great experience, and allowed me to get a feel for company culture and the type of people they were looking for. I had heard of Drive Digital before the event, so I made sure to meet the team in person and get a sense of the position they were hiring for.

Now that you’ve been able to find an awesome new role from Talent Day, what is life at Drive Digital like?
Lorraine: Life at Drive is awesome – I’m really enjoying my new job and especially the company culture. Being a recent grad it was very important to me to find a place where I could grow and continue improving my skills, and Drive has all of that and more. The company has a very laid-back atmosphere, which I love, as it makes even the more stressful times during deadlines fun.

We were able to connect with Miles Sellyn, Managing Partner at Drive, to learn more about their time at Talent Day, and this is what he had to say:

What was your experience at Talent Day like while representing Drive Digital? 
Miles: We had a great time attending our first Talent Day a few months ago. We met over 60 candidates for our 3 open positions, interviewed 6, and have now have one working for us…and she has been doing an amazing job since day one!

What is Drive Digital like?
Miles: Drive Digital is a creative digital agency with a specialization in web design and development. We’re a team of 26 talented UX/UI designers, developers, strategists and project managers with passion for creating top quality websites that make an impact for our clients. We take our work very serious, but not ourselves (except when it comes to MarioKart).

If you’d like to learn more about Drive Digital, be sure to visit their website, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter!

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