"Supervisor autonomous institution", 2011, N 3

An experienced leader tries to always be aware of the mood of his subordinates. This not only helps to avoid internal crises that are dangerous for the integrity of the organization and the performance of the team, but also strengthens the idea in employees that the contribution of each of them is important for the common cause. A reliable tool for determining the moods and thoughts of the staff is the principle of feedback.

The most popular feedback methods traditionally include questionnaires, interviews, head-to-head communication, a suggestion box, a hotline, and a 360-degree assessment of staff. Consider what these methods are, in what situations each of them is most effective.

Questionnaire

The method involves a survey of employees using a specially prepared questionnaire (questionnaire). The goal is to get an objective idea of ​​the opinion of employees on a particular topical issue as quickly as possible, with a minimum of time and money.

Questioning can be continuous (all employees of the organization are surveyed) or selective (a survey is made of one unit or employees of a certain category).

Selective survey carried out in cases where it is necessary to obtain feedback on a specific local issue. for example, employees of one of the departments of the institution achieved the highest results at the end of the year and the management intends to reward them for Good work. A sample survey conducted among these employees will reveal their expectations regarding forms of encouragement.

Continuous survey will be appropriate if management needs to learn and analyze the views of employees on important strategic issues. For example, an organization develops a set of rules governing corporate culture. Using this type of survey, you can get information about how employees imagine the mission and values ​​​​of the institution, its place among other organizations of a similar profile, competitive advantages, development prospects, etc.

In addition, the survey can be nominal(each respondent enters his last name, first name and patronymic in the questionnaire) and anonymous(employees answer questions without indicating any personal information).

Practice shows that HR specialists try to avoid personal questioning of personnel. However, among the indisputable advantages of this type of survey is that employees are more clearly aware of the degree of their own responsibility and give more thoughtful, balanced answers. In particular, personalized questioning is advisable when an expert assessment of the organization's activities is necessary (for example, it is necessary to find out the opinion of a number of employees regarding the effectiveness of innovations and innovations).

With anonymous surveys, employees usually answer questions more openly and truthfully, but there is an increase in hasty and ill-conceived answers. Nevertheless, organizations are much more likely to conduct just such a survey. Such surveys are used, for example, to collect information about working conditions, employees' satisfaction with their professional activities, the presence or absence of a "generation gap", and the managerial style of a leader.

Optimal and, accordingly, the most common the volume of the questionnaire is from 5 to 12 questions. The fact is that with a smaller number of items on the questionnaire, it will be quite difficult to get an objective picture of the topic being studied, with a larger number, employees may not have enough time to fill out the questionnaire or they will be distracted from their duties for a long time.

A standard questionnaire, as a rule, contains an appeal to the employee (respondent), a description of the purpose of the survey, as well as the format in which the questions must be answered. open question method involves the answers of employees in a free form. If the questionnaire is based on closed question method, the employee must select one or more answers from the list provided. Besides, questionnaire can be compiled using the method of combined questions.

To get the most out of the survey (in other words, to get as many employees as possible to fill out and turn in the surveys), ask the respondents to respond to the questions immediately and collect the completed forms in 20 to 30 minutes. If you decide to give questionnaires to employees at home, keep in mind that there is a risk of getting back no more than 20% of the completed sheets.

Thus, the advantage of a survey is that it can be used to collect a large amount of information in a short time and reveal the opinions of employees on a particular pressing issue. The disadvantages include obtaining standardized and often superficial information (to compensate for this, it is recommended to use the survey together with the interview).

However, the survey can be not only among employees of the institution, but also among consumers- in this case, the manager receives an additional tool for quality control of the provision of a particular service. Take, for example, a university. Increasing competition between higher educational institutions forces them to pay considerable attention to the quality of the educational and other services provided (for example, pre-university training, advanced training programs). Questioning students and recipients of other services will help to more accurately assess the work of teachers.

In particular, in high school Economics, the student teacher assessment system has been in place since 2001. Information is collected once a semester: students are asked to anonymously rate each teacher who taught them during this period on a five-point scale. Questions of the questionnaire concern the systematic and clear presentation of the material, the contact of the teacher with the audience, the possibility of extracurricular communication. In addition, students can leave comments and statements regarding the work of teachers in the questionnaire. Based on the results of the survey, the average scores scored by each teacher for each of the items are calculated. The processed information is sent to the university management, deans of faculties, as well as heads of departments, who, if necessary, bring it to the attention of teachers.

Interview

This method is a conversation between a manager or an HR specialist with one or more key employees. The purpose of the conversation is to collect the most detailed information on the problem under discussion and to get a detailed idea of ​​the opinion or position of employees. Let's take as an example the situation already mentioned above: the management of the institution decided to reward the most effective employees based on the results of work for the year. To find out what forms of incentives best meet the expectations of employees in these departments, it is advisable to talk with their immediate superiors. First, department heads may well know about the preferences of subordinates. Secondly, a conversation with a small group of people will take much less time than with each employee of the organization individually.

Personnel management specialists divide the interview into formalized (the same, standard questions are used for all interviewees) and informal (the conversation is conducted in a free form). formalized interview it is recommended to use it when collecting information on corporate policy and building a motivation system. informal interview brings good results when you need to get information on individual problems (say, find out the degree of popularity of a particular head of a department).

As a rule, the conversation is built as follows. At the beginning of the conversation, the purpose of the interview is explained to the employee. The interviewer can record the essence of the conversation in a diary or record it on a voice recorder. The duration of the interview depends on the complexity of the problem being discussed, but most often it lasts from 20 to 40 minutes.

The results of the interview are a report that formulates conclusions on the problem under study. for example if the interview was conducted in order to identify effective ways motivation of employees, in his report, the HR specialist describes these methods and indicates those employees whose expectations coincided with the selected methods of motivation.

Or another example. AT general education schools often there are disagreements within the team. Thus, educators may misinterpret the role of a psychologist in the educational process (it seems to them that a psychologist should overnight turn a loser into a successful student, a bully and a bully into an obedient boy, etc.). At the same time, every school psychologist knows that teachers can be intolerant of criticism, have high or low self-esteem, resist change, be vulnerable, closed. All these complexities of interpersonal communication, as a rule, are not recognized by teachers and are little analyzed by the administration. educational institution. The interview method will help the school principal to identify the most significant points that lead to disagreements in the team and thus hinder the normal work process.

The advantage of the interview method is that it can be used to obtain more accurate information about the opinions of various employees. The disadvantage is a significant investment of time and effort. In addition, the results of the interview will be more objective if it is conducted by an independent consultant.

Communication over the head

The head of an organization (especially a large one) often does not have full and reliable information about the activities of its units and therefore cannot objectively assess the situation on the ground. At first glance, it may seem that communication with the heads of departments is built well, and at meetings they speak quite convincingly. However, communication only with those who are directly subordinate does not allow the manager to identify all the existing problems, to find out the issues that concern ordinary employees.

This happens because the heads of departments often present the boss with only good news and information that is beneficial to them, and they prefer to remain silent about problems. Direct communication with employees "through the head" of their leaders helps to get a more objective picture, a fresh and accurate idea of ​​the events taking place in the organization. That's why any "boss" should periodically "go out to the team." However, in order to achieve good results of the conversation "over the head", the manager should behave openly and democratically with the employee, listen to his opinion and in every possible way emphasize the fact that they work together in the same organization.

There are several forms of implementing communication in a similar format: visiting departments to talk with employees, organizing special meetings or meetings with employees, inviting one or more employees to the manager’s office for an informal conversation, joint business trips with subordinates to solve any production problems. In particular, in one of the medium-sized organizations, the director went around all the departments every morning, shook hands with the heads of departments, and selectively spoke with ordinary employees. This allowed him to always be aware of whether employees are satisfied or not with working conditions, what they think about the prospects for the development of the organization, etc.

Suggestion box

The essence of this method is simple: a box is posted in a conspicuous place, in which employees are invited to leave letters with proposals for improving working conditions, relations in the team, the activities of the institution as a whole, as well as with information "about sore." If you are comfortable with the anonymity of letters, it is better not to oblige employees to sign proposals.

Practice shows that The effectiveness of this method is directly dependent on the location of the box. In no case do not hang it near the offices of the chiefs or near the CCTV cameras. The best place is the lobby of the institution. But even with a favorable location of the box, do not immediately count on a large number of notes, since the formulation of proposals will require additional time from employees.

The effectiveness of this method also depends on another important point: none of the suggestions that drop into the box should be ignored. They need to be discussed at separate meetings (preferably in a conference room, in the presence of the entire team) and the necessary measures taken.

The suggestion box works well in large organizations where top management cannot physically communicate with all employees. This is a cheap and easy way to assess the situation in the team, since in most cases it is much easier for employees to entrust their thoughts to paper than to present them to the manager face to face. Another advantage of the method is that it is "long-playing", because the box can hang in the institution all the time.

Hot line

The hotline provides employees with the opportunity quickly ask a question about a problem situation and get a quick answer to it. It can be carried out both by phone and through electronic means of communication. In particular, the telephone line is organized as follows. Number hotline and its topic are brought to the attention of all employees, and within a certain period of time (several hours, a working day) information is collected at the specified number (on an answering machine or under the operator’s record). After the initial processing, the information is transferred to the head, who, at a special meeting, voices questions asked and answers them.

An electronic line requires a local electronic network. A page is created on the internal website of the organization, where everyone can ask a question to the manager.

Method "360 degrees"

The 360-degree assessment provides an opportunity to obtain information about the actions of a specialist in real work situations and about the professional qualities he has shown. At the same time, information is collected from people who communicate with a specialist from different positions: his boss, colleague, subordinate, client ... The completeness of information received from such a wide range of people (hence the "360 degrees") makes this method a fairly effective tool estimates.

The method can be used to solve the most a wide range tasks, but primarily those related to the professional development of employees. It is used for the preliminary formation of a personnel reserve, identifying training needs, evaluating its results, and creating an individual development plan. In addition, the method can be useful when promoting a specialist to a new position. In this case, as one of the respondents, you can also involve the applicant for the position himself - ask him to evaluate his work behavior and professional quality, and then use this information to correct his self-esteem and create an individual development plan together with him.

However, please note that when evaluating personnel, the effectiveness of the 360-degree method will largely depend on the corporate culture of the organization. Under an authoritarian system of government, when criticism is welcomed only "from top to bottom", this method is unlikely to take root. "360 degrees" is a fairly democratic technique. Moreover, its application requires preparatory work: not everyone likes that they are evaluated by other people, including subordinates, so that without proper preparation of the employees being evaluated and participating in the evaluation, they may experience certain psychological difficulties.

V.G. Shpakovsky

Journal Expert

"Supervisor

autonomous institution"

FinExecutive Russia site 2019-07-29

Do you give feedback to your employees? And the leaders?

We all know that big successful companies not just professionals, but leaders. Who are leaders and what qualities should they possess?

Feedback is a powerful tool in employee development. It can have both positive and negative effects. After all, yelling at a negligent specialist also means giving feedback. But what does it usually lead to? One person gathers and is more attentive to his work. And the other - begins to be cautious and do only what allows you to get the approval of the boss. He will no longer experiment to avoid mistakes. Will not look for and correct shortcomings, so as not to displease colleagues. We talk about how to give the right feedback with Daria Rudnik, HR Director of ATOL.

As a 2007 study from the University of Auckland showed, students who receive feedback in a certain format achieve the maximum results. In fact, it is about stating what they have done and recommending what they could have done better. The lowest effect was given by rewards, praise and punishment - they had almost no effect on the success of students. Moreover, in some cases, material rewards even acted negatively, as they reduced intrinsic motivation. This was especially noticeable in the example of interesting, creative tasks.

If the feedback is of high quality, then it helps a person to develop. Knowing this, many managers give employees feedback at the end of the year. And they do it in vain, by the way. Deloitte notes in its 2017 HR trends survey that over the past five years, companies have radically revised the approach to personnel assessment. Increasingly, the practice of continuous performance management is used.

This means that flexible task scheduling is replacing the annual one. And the evaluation at the end of the year is replaced by constant feedback. After all, now the company can revise its goals within a year, six months and even a quarter. And standard employee assessment practices will not keep up with the new transformations. That's why Deloitte, Adobe, and Accenture, for example, have dropped annual estimates. They recommend that their managers communicate one-on-one with subordinates every 2-4 weeks.

The goal is to prioritize tasks, give feedback to the employee, discuss the possibilities of his development. Every quarter, bosses look at the top-level achievements of specialists, taking into account feedback from colleagues. At the same time, the employee is also responsible for the timely updating of the goals set for him. He can independently request feedback from colleagues and the manager based on the results of his actions - immediately or at regular meetings with the latter.

How to give effective feedback to an employee?

1. Be very specific. Options "your report is unreadable!" or "you're doing a great job" are not appropriate. A person simply does not understand what exactly he is doing good or bad, whether improvement is required and in what. This means that he will not see opportunities for correction and development.

Instead, say, “There is a lot of data in the report you prepared. Next time I would like to see the conclusions on them in a presentation format.” Or, “You've handled twice as many clients over the phone as I asked for this week. There was not a single complaint against you, all customers received exhaustive correct answers. Thank you for the good work!”.

2. Don't wait too long. Back in 2000, Wagner and Murphy conducted a study among students. It turned out that fast feedback on simple tasks encourages them to be more efficient next time.

On the other hand, there are complex tasks, and the performers sometimes need time to comprehend the results in their implementation. In any case, feedback is optimal when a person still remembers the result he has achieved. Therefore, regular meetings every 2-4 weeks can be a good reason to take stock.

3. The one-on-one rule. Never criticize an employee in front of others. For some, even public praise can be stressful. Always give one-on-one feedback so that you can talk about improvements and development in a relaxed atmosphere.

4. End on a positive note. Negative feedback can be hard on both the giver and the receiver. Finishing the meeting with a “debriefing”, you can even cause internal discomfort in yourself and unwillingness to repeat this again. Therefore, be guided by the “+/-/+” rule: first, we note the pluses in a person’s activities, then we give feedback on a specific occasion, and at the end, we thank him for the work that he does for us.

Feedback is a tool that allows you to manage personnel, the effectiveness of business processes. A well-built system of interaction with employees is the key to the success of the entire company. What to look for, read the material of the article.

From the article you will learn:

Feedback: general information

Feedback helps the manager to receive up-to-date information about all processes in the organization. With its help, they control the effectiveness of management decisions, their consequences, adjust the work of employees and departments. Managers regard feedback as a powerful tool of influence, which is impossible to do without.

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The manager must understand how to give feedback to the employee. If the conversation is not built correctly, instead of motivation and inspiration, the employee will feel unnecessary. In organizations with an authoritarian management style, communication with the team is given minimal attention. For this reason, the psychological climate, corporate culture suffer, and staff turnover is growing. Rude feedback is what completely deprives a person of the desire to work, to benefit the company.

Properly builtemployee feedback systemallows the leader to:

• express recognition to a subordinate;
• maintain high motivation;
• change the expectations, collective assessment and self-assessment of the employee;
• increase the efficiency and productivity of work;
• identify goals, clarify the tasks facing the specialist;
• understand the reasons for the employee's protest;
• adjust the behavior of the subordinate and expectations for the rational use of opportunities;
• direct people to develop in the right direction;
• develop mutual understanding and trust;
• maintain a positive atmosphere in the company;
• to develop cohesion, harmony of specialists, forming a team approach;
• identify that a certain process or tool does not provide the desired result;
• identify areas that require modernization, adjustment or development in order to ensure the growth and progress of the company;
• identify the level of job satisfaction in the company, the team.

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Employee feedback rules

Professional managers follow the rules of feedback to the employee so that the psychological climate does not suffer, staff turnover does not increase, and work efficiency increases. If the manager is not ready to communicate with colleagues, it is better to refuse dialogue.

How to give feedback to an employee:

1. The manager studies the essence of the issue, prepares for the conversation. Nothing should interfere with communication with the employee.
2. First, they talk about what suits the specialist in the work, only after that they move on to criticism. Head directs worker in the right direction, adhering to constructive communication. He says what to change, but does not criticize.
3. During the conversation, they rely on facts, and not on speculation or gossip. It is undesirable to focus on situations that were a few months ago. At the same time, you can not put the employee in an uncomfortable position, reproach him.
4. Clear feedback is the key to employee efficiency. A person must understand what exactly they want from him, and not guess. Involving the employee in the discussion helps to solve even complex problems.
5. Conclusions are clearly drawn. Subsequently, the result of the agreements is monitored, what has changed in the work.

Feedback is given not only upon completion of the case, project, but also in the course of work. If a specialist asks for help, he should not be refused. In the presence of communicative and constant feedback, the potential of employees is revealed, and the business reaches a new level.

The main task of feedback based on the results of the assessment is to show the participant
its results and help to accept them, so that in the future the employee will rely on
to his strengths, developed competencies that needed attention, and delegated work for which he demonstrated neither the potential nor the developed skills. However, it happens that on feedback the consultant has to act in an unusual role - for example, an ambassador of a client company.

Tamara Sumina, Project Manager for Evaluation and Development Centers, recalls 3 cases when the feedback went beyond the discussion of evaluation results, and the consultant was faced with tasks that managers usually have to solve.

The article will be useful to managers and HR. It will help managers to notice moments in relationships with subordinates that usually do not have time.
or forces, although their impact on employee performance can be significant.
HR-specialists will be prompted what to pay attention to when building a conversation between a manager and his subordinate.

Feedback as an opportunity to clarify unpleasant working moments in the past

Once we ran an assessment and development center for a mining company.
One of the participants was very alert and tense during the assessment. Of course, the assessment situation is always stressful, so we often encounter distrust and tension. However, during the competency interview, the participant behaved especially strangely.

I asked standard questions: “Tell us how you choose the tools to motivate your subordinates”, “Give me an example when you had to resolve a conflict situation in a team”, etc. And the participant began each answer with his own question: “Why are you asking this?”.

The results of psychometrics indicated a state of deep uncertainty,
and that's where I started our conversation in the feedback session. It turned out that a year before the assessment, subordinates wrote a complaint against the participant to the top management of the company and demanded to be removed from office. The participant was transferred to another position: also a high one, but not a managerial one, but an expert one.

Therefore, he connected each of my questions in an interview on competencies
with that situation. And although it was resolved, and the participant remained in the company, the management did not consider it necessary to talk with the employee, clarify this unpleasant situation and recognize the value of his work: the participant's expertise was highly valued in the company.

Managers often think that the decision to leave an employee is more important than conversations.

Feedback gave the participant the opportunity to speak out - to talk about their anxieties, doubts, fears. And most importantly, be heard.

If your employee made a serious mistake or experienced a setback but stayed with the company, take the time to talk and discuss the unpleasant situation in detail. Perhaps the employee is deeply worried about the problem
and this affects his current work tasks. Open discussion of mistakes and recognition of the value of his work will help the employee to overcome the situation, perceive it as a useful experience and prevent similar mistakes in the future.

Feedback as a way to discuss current difficulties at work

Once we evaluated the employees of a large company in order to give recommendations on the formation of a personnel reserve. During the assessment, one of the participants showed great distrust of the procedure: he did not want to participate in the personnel reserve program, since he was not interested in the development of managerial qualities.

It was much more important for the participant to stay in his position and develop in the role of an expert. Therefore, on feedback, instead of talking about the prospects for the development of managerial qualities, we discussed the current difficulties in working with reference to the competencies that were assessed during the assessment.

So, for example, the participant understood why it is difficult for him to agree with an adjacent department - the competence of "cross-functional interaction"
was practically undeveloped. This was shown by the results of psychometrics and face-to-face assessment: the participant emphasized independently expressed his point of view, did not take into account the objections of colleagues and insisted on his own. He did not care about the situations and interests of other units.

From the feedback session, the participant expected that he would be “forced to develop”, so I had to build the conversation as gently as possible and show
that the observations we made during the evaluation can be useful not only for career advancement, but also for daily work. “Thanks, I thought it would be worse,” the participant admitted at the end of the conversation.

Not all employees need and want to develop managerial qualities and move up the career ladder. If you plan to send someone from your subordinates for evaluation, find out if the employee wants to advance as a manager or if it is more important for him to develop in the role of an expert.

Feedback as a tool for adaptation in a new team

It happens that an employee goes through the assessment center immediately after he came to the company. At the same time, the requirements that the past employer made of him often do not coincide with the qualities that are valued in the new company. And during the assessment, the participant out of habit behaves as encouraged at the previous place of work.

For example, in a previous company, following rules and procedures was a core competency, and initiative was not particularly valued. And in a new position, on the contrary: procedures and deadlines are in the background, while openness to new things and a willingness to change are in demand in the first place.

In this case, the feedback consultant plays the role of the client's ambassador and the competence model adopted in his company, that is, he redirects the participant from one coordinate system to another. Explains that low scores
- this is not a sign that the participant is not professional enough or did not cope well with the cases, but rather they say that during the assessment he was guided by the previous competency model. And at a new place of work, other competencies are valued and required.

This feedback helps the employee to quickly adapt to a new place.

The task of HR in such a situation is to draw the attention of the employee to the difference between those competencies that were valued in the previous position and those that are required of him in the new company. As an intermediary in a conversation between a manager and his subordinate, it is important for an HR specialist to show what skills and qualities an employee will need in a new place, and most importantly, how to develop them.