Even if it’s negative,
feedback that’s meaningful and useful is effective at keeping good employees on the job.
But what manager has time to give feedback every week to every direct report to stay ahead of turnover? All of them! That’s if they try Gallup’s Fast Feedback approach.
Here are three critical elements. Fast Feedback should be:
Frequent
Like we mentioned already – at least weekly. Notice and commend good work and actions when you see them. Congratulate or thank teams at every meeting for something.
Focused
Gear feedback to individual talents, needs and contributions. Connect what they’ve done to its impact on the bigger picture. Also listen to how they feel about what you’ve said. Then react accordingly, perhaps with praise, clarification, direction or maybe nothing more.
Future-oriented
Emphasize the moment, recognizing accomplishments and asking how you can remove roadblocks that interfere with doing the same or better again. Or address shortcomings constructively by focusing on behaviors, not employee characteristics, and how to practice better behaviors going forward.
Give upskill, reskill opportunities
You can keep more employees by helping them see you as their next best opportunity, not just their current employer.
To stay ahead of turnover, focus on internal mobility, the Korn Ferry researchers said. This is especially important for niche roles. Don’t look for new people to fill those. Train employees who strive for more to fill them.
Work with the C-Suite and a team of managers to form a reskill and upskill program. Create standards to get into the program, where they’ll receive specialized job training, coaching, mentoring and on-the-job experiences.
Then, when employees make the efforts to learn and move up, compensate them fairly
