STIMULATE EMPLOYEE JOB PERFORMANCE WITH MOTIVATIONAL FEEDBACK

By Dr. Beverly Hyatt

In these unprecedented times, it’s not surprising that employers are seeking ways to stimulate employee job performance and organizational productivity. Businesses are facing diverse challenges due to the pandemic. Why? Businesses are struggling to stay afloat and maintain their presence in a competitive market.

Additionally, the shifting labor market, coupled with remote employee engagement has heightened the need for employers to engage employees as they help them feel invested in their work. Motivational feedback is a recognized strategy for building, encouraging, and sustaining employee engagement to commit to go above and beyond one’s assigned work-related tasks. This leads to enhancing organizational productivity.

I share the following definition of motivational feedback penned by fellow writer Paul Matthews of Alchemy LTD: recognition or approval given to employees for work to reinforce their behavior.1 In its most effective form, motivational feedback will empower employees by providing ongoing information about operations, processes, and work behavior in such a way that employees are likely to achieve higher levels of success in their job performance.

Most employees want to be recognized as good performers. Oftentimes, employees are left to form their own interpretations about their job effectiveness. If you’ve noticed, our employers are sometimes too busy to provide constructive criticism, or corrective or negative feedback. However, positive and negative feedback can be motivational if it’s delivered in a manner that is supportive. Employees should be given non-threatening, task-specific as well as constructive feedback. Frequent discourse with employees about job tasks (informally and formally) coupled with applicable documentation and examples, can help employees understand what is expected of them. Moreover, employers must recognize that employees need communication from their managers in order to adjust their performance to meet organizational goals.

Employers should convey to their workers an assessment of their strengths and accomplishments regularly. Indeed, constructive feedback is a powerful tool that will underscore competence, increase employees’ sense of self-efficacy, foster goal setting, and promote achievement of job-related tasks. Positive feedback results in higher levels of knowledge sharing, improved performance outcomes, and altruistic characteristics. More than half of respondents in one study preferred constructive feedback, which is issuefocused and information-specific. Interestingly, research also shows that 92% of respondents wanted to hear negative feedback “if delivered appropriately” and was career enhancing.

Employers who learn to master the art of providing motivational feedback create relationships with their employees. These relationships are collaborative and inspire innovative behaviors. Using feedback as a tool for open communication about how employees can contribute to achieving company goals is naturally motivating in that it increases autonomy, job satisfaction, productivity, and employee retention.

In closing, managers can no longer remain in their offices and allow workers to assess themselves. Such practices risk having workers feel disconnected from their role. Ultimately, this leads to employees underperforming. Instead, managers must engage in open dialog, provide helpful job-related information, and encourage employees to give feedback about their own job functions. As a result, individual, team, and organizational performance will inevitably be strengthened. u