HR Hacks for Leaders: Developing Your Feedback Loops

I’m excited to get into today’s topic as the 3rd post in the HR Hacks for Leaders series. I’ve written this series because few supervisors have the time to dedicate hours to learning and much less time to implement the learning. So, this series is a gift to you. I’m asking you as a supervisor to take some time and let me teach you the structure of managing people. I’ve worked in human resources for the last 25 years, so I’m sitting on many lessons learned. Plus, I’ve provided a picture of bright lights and loops to inspire us. Let’s go!

In the 1st post, I shared five key metrics to review and track as a supervisor. These included employee engagement scores, turnover, salary budget, benefits usage, and career & development opportunities for your team. It’s like a people dashboard for you. In the 2nd post, I shared how the turnover metric is dynamic, meaning that this metric can tell you a lot when you dive deeper than surface level numbers.

Remember Alice from last week? After exploring her team’s turnover, Alice’s supervisor provided some ways to be center marginalized voices on her team. Today we are focusing on how you can build constant feedback loops for yourself as a supervisor in ways that feel human and not too awkward. These are some of the suggestions that Alice’s supervisor might have provided.

Feedback can be a scary word. We’ve all had different experiences with it. Here are some of mine:

·       Receiving feedback from someone that was really just being passive-aggressive with me.

·       Receiving feedback when I didn’t ask for it.

·       Receiving feedback that is not helpful. For example, “you are doing a great job” helps my ego but not my work approach.

·       Asking for feedback and getting no response.

Can you relate to any of these? I’m confident that you have your own horror stories. One thing that I have realized in the last few years is the lack of helpful feedback I received in my career. I don’t know if it’s my confidence or knowledge, but I’ve rarely had supervisors who could help me grow deeper in my abilities and performance. Helpful feedback is a gift.

As a new supervisor, you will need some feedback from your team about your leadership. I’m going to outline several ways to ask for feedback that go from short-term and informal to long-term and formal. These ways are also available across a spectrum – individual, team, and organization. For each of these suggestions, I recommend trying one at a time and over a few weeks or even months.

Meeting Check-in

Sometimes a simple, consistent change can make all the difference. Connecting as individuals before we work together provides a basis of shared experience and starting place for trust. That’s how I feel about using a check-in round at the beginning of each meeting.

A check-in involves crafting a question for everyone to answer at the beginning of the meeting. Using a check-in question allows every voice in the room to be heard, offers a shared connection at the beginning of the meeting, and deepens understanding between attendees. Here’s an example question for you to try: “What is your goal for our meeting today?” I use this question often because it helps me in building an agenda that meets everyone’s goals.

For a group that meets regularly, you can also add a check-out round at the end of the meeting to see if goals have been met and/or ask for agenda input into your next meeting. The use of a meeting check-in provides instant feedback for you as a supervisor because you are learning about your teammates’ needs and goals for being together.

Retrospectives

A retrospective is really just another term for a project review process. This process involves gathering the team to review and reflect on a recent project or unit of work. The retrospective is different than a regular team meeting because you need a good 30-45 minutes to focus on the topic. Here’s a sample retrospective agenda:

·       Opening – Remind everyone about the meeting purpose; check-in round

·       Review – What was the work completed? What were the goals? Were the goals accomplished?

·       Historic Reflection – What worked well in this project? What were the learning opportunities for the project? What could we have done better? What feedback did we receive? What learnings from this project could we take forward to our next one?

·       Forward Reflection – What are the activities need to fully closeout this project? Examples include document storage, client thank you notes, etc. How can we use this work in future projects? How can we promote this work in our marketing?

·       Closing – Confirm where notes from this meeting will be located; check-out round

Providing a supportive space where the team can review and reflect on their work builds trust and consistency in team projects. The use of a retrospective provides group feedback for you as a supervisor because you are learning how your team processes information and works together.  

Performance Reviews

Let’s be honest – performance reviews are the worst. Typically, this is an annual conversation between a supervisor and employee where the supervisor is supposed to have incredible feedback that moves an employee forward in big ways. I realize that you may not have much influence on the structure, ratings, or process for performance reviews. And these can take a lot of your time.

However, you can make these awkward meetings better by asking one question, “How can I support you in doing your best work?” Some answers might be clearing roadblocks, asking for budget increases, running interference with a troublesome department, or even just being present more often. The use of this question in a performance review provides direct feedback to you as a supervisor from each of your employees because you are learning how to support them.

Stay Interviews

Stay interviews are usually conducted with high-performing employees who are at risk of leaving a company. However, I think that stay interviews with every employee is a great way to keep feedback flowing throughout the year. I’m providing a link to different stay interview questions, but you can make it really simple by asking one question, “What is the best thing about working here?” Just sit back and listen.

Stay interviews are really about learning what is working well. If you have an annual performance review cycle, then schedule your stay interviews six months after the performance review. The use of a stay interview provides direct feedback to you as a supervisor because you are learning what is working well enough for your team to stay at your company.

Exit Interviews

Exit interviews are completed when an employee leaves a company. They are usually conducted by a Human Resources representative so that the information shared can be kept confidential. Some companies use outside groups to conduct these interviews. Exit interviews are tricky because response rates can be low. It’s also tricky to share information from the exit interview of a single individual because confidentiality will be compromised.

It is difficult for a supervisor to complete an exit interview because of your relationship to the employee. It’s really important that each employee has a safe place to share feedback when they leave. So, I encourage you to stay connected to your company’s exit interview data. The use of exit interview data provides high-level feedback for you as a supervisor because you are learning about company-level trends.

Transition Meetings

When people change roles in a team or even leave the company, this can cause unintended disruption in a team. People that work with this employee will experience different feelings and impacts from this change. What would it look like for your team to spend 15 minutes in a discuss about this new team void? I really like the S.E.L.F. model that we use in trainings for the Center for Trauma-Resilient Communities. The flow goes like this:

·       Safety – What safety concerns do we have? These may include physical, psychological, cultural, and racial.

·       Emotions – What emotions are you experiencing right now? FYI – “good” and “fine” are not emotions.

·       Loss – What losses are you experiencing as a result of this event? An example may be someone feeling loss of freedom to take a vacation due to an increased workload.

·       Future – How can we move forward now? What help is needed?

The questions are fairly easy, yet just asking them in a supported space allows all voices to be heard. Before I go any further, let me emphasize strongly here that these discussions are not some “woo woo” concept or therapeutic technique. Discussing transitions allows us to collectively practice emotional intelligence in the workplace. For leaders who are looking to grow, one study says that nearly 90 percent of what sets high performers apart is emotional intelligence. The use of transition meetings provides group feedback on short-term and long-term needs for your team.

Employee Engagement Surveys

Forward-looking companies will want to regularly engage their employees around feedback. Different types of instruments are used, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc. And every one of these companies has a different approach. Some companies use pulse surveys, which provide more regular feedback (Ex. Quarterly). Some companies use an annual or bi-annual process.

What’s important for you as a supervisor is knowing the results and understanding them. It’s especially useful if you are able to see the results for your specific team and/or your entire team department. Using employee engagement data provides comparison feedback for you as a supervisor because you are seeing your employee perceptions compared to the rest of the company.

Of course, all of this data can be useful. Just remember – this is not a competition. Supervising others is an opportunity to build connections and support dynamic humans doing extraordinary work. To recap, here’s a list of when to use these feedback loops:

1.       Meeting check-ins (weekly, every time you facilitate a meeting)

2.       Retrospectives (at the end of a project or season of work – maybe quarterly)

3.       Performance reviews (annually or your company’s specific cycle)

4.       Stay interviews (annually – schedule six months after performance reviews

5.       Transition meetings (as needed when changes occur)

6.       Exit interviews & employee engagement surveys (administered by the company)

Seem easy enough? How you capture this feedback is up to you. I vacillate between taking notes on paper and creating notes on my computer. Either way, it’s good to know where to find the feedback and have regular times to review it. Come back next week to learn more about pay equity. Everyone wants a raise these days; I’ll tell you why and how to address it as a supervisor.

Photo by Nareeta Martin on Unsplash

The is the third part in a four-part blog series. You can review a list of reflective questions on our blog, Reflecting on the Process – A Global Case Study in Virtual Teaming — Loftis Partners