What can you do to provide feedback in a remote world blog

How to provide feedback to colleagues can be a challenge. How specific should I be how do I maintain the need for sensitivity with directness? What can I do to promote an engaging discussion that will leave my coworker feeling confident and optimistic?

Working remotely can amplify those challenges. The body language and subtle signals that may be readily perceived on the ground may be harder to perceive remotely. And so, when you are able to give constructive feedback, positive or negative, the wires are crossed, and people may not be in the right state of mind to hear what you have to say.

Feedback, despite its pitfalls and challenges, is a necessary part of teamwork. It isn't enough to hope your team will magically narrow the gap on those areas of improvement; nor can your team continue its work indefinitely without leadership support and motivation.

So, in this article in this article, we'll provide the best practices you can use to help improve your feedback with colleagues at work. So, let's get started.

How to give constructive feedback

Consider the method of delivery

In the plethora of options for communication at your disposal make sure you choose the right one. Make a habit of asking newly recruited team members (or current team members) which way they prefer to communicate and what they would like to hear from them in feedback.

Although your company may have a standard for regular reviews, feedback could happen at any point and it's important to ensure that everyone on your team is at their desks and are comfortable receiving the feedback. It could be as simple as turning off the camera or writing a thoughtful and informative email or scheduling more frequent 1:1s depending on their level of comfort and the goals within the organization.

Create a safe environment

In a physical office you'll find many ways you can create a positive impression through the environment. You could invite a colleague out for coffee and unpack what they thought of a big client meeting that didn't go well and then head to a boardroom for intense conversations, or even stop them in the hallway to give them a quick hugs. But in a remote world there is a lot of difficulty in choosing the ideal location for what you'd like to discuss. In the end, you'll need to set up psychologically safety signals.
This could mean ensuring that your meeting time will not encounter any external distractions or stress, dressing to the situation (a casual dress code can go far in making people feel comfortable) and even suggesting the possibility of a phone call or camera shut-off to break people from screen fatigue. The use of a voice-only conference also cuts down the intimidation of the meeting and fosters an active and engaged listening experience on both sides. Which leads us to our next topic.

Listen (but don't pry!)

A distributed workplace with communication patterns constantly changing and the lines between personal and professional life are becoming less clear and transparent, listening actively builds trust and confidence. Listening actively gives you a situational knowledge of what your coworkers have been experiencing in their personal lives, and the factors that affect their performance. It gives you the opportunity to improve feedback delivery, understand what's not working, and how to create an environment that is more conducive to your teammates.

Start with the good rather than the bad

It's been long established that the compliment sandwich--in which critique is tucked between two positives is an efficient way to deliver difficult news. Positive feedback, however, has taken on a new significance nowadays. Many people feel stressed out on many personal fronts (like family, health and social issues, and, despite your best efforts, likely professional) and would greatly get positive feedback.

From these constant stressful situations comes what psychologists described as negativity bias, which tends to concentrate and dwell on negative criticism instead of positive feedback. That means employers need to do their best to emphasize those who are positive over those who are not. Whatever your feedback might be, the best thing to do is begin with empathy and kindness, and acknowledge all the effort employees have put in through this challenging time.

Make sure you are specific and concrete when you share your feedback.

To help counter negativity and biases, focus on specific feedback that provides useful insights, not general remarks on confidence, behavior, or work ethic, or skills for conflict resolution, which could be easily mistaken or ineffective.

Feedback that is constructive doesn't only serve as a performance review, it's also a chance to grow and setting goals. Feedback that is most beneficial comes provided when you have a clear purpose and goal in mind, and can clearly communicate what this person should work on in order to help them get there.

Feedback can be tied to action and impact What their strategy directly resulted in a good income or an oversight or lack of communication caused another worker being forced to do certain duties and how it might be handled better next time around.

Prioritize your feedback to address your most pressing concerns

Instead of saving a laundry list of critiques or praises that you can chuck out at during a meeting, think about making your comments more specific to points that would make most impact in areas when it is needed.

Go through key takeaways together

After your meeting, ask for them to discuss the main points. Then, you can brainstorm with them how they might overcome the gaps in their efficiency and/or grow further in their position (and the ways that you could be able to support them) or ask them to give a report of the meeting in the event that they're at ease enough to be able to. Your goal is to be certain that you're on the same page and that you can assure that the information you've received has arrived exactly where it was intended.

Follow up

In the weeks or months following your feedback session follow up with them and see how they're performing. It's a good chance to keep building trust, make sure they're capable of balancing their responsibilities in a variety of ways, or reinforce constructive feedback.

Tips for video collaboration, as well as feedback

Record your presentations using video to get review

Record post-mortem thoughts, and the group's responses

Feedback and how to provide it. FAQs

    What are the best positive feedback examples?    

Positive feedback example: "Sarah has done an amazing job of taking unwanted tasks and building efficient tools for us to use. We would love to see her grow her skills by tackling more challenging tasks and sharing her knowledge and expertise through presentations as well as various other tools."                     How can you write peer feedback?    

Couch constructive feedback and provide positive feedback. Be sure that your feedback is concrete and precise and also linked to a particular purpose. Make it possible for your team members to provide feedback. Be patient and provide support where it is needed.                     What's an example of constructive feedback?    

A positive example of feedback "Phil has managed the workload which was 10 percent higher than the prior year, and was enthusiastic and efficiency, while running his projects and ensuring that they meet deadlines. One challenge I'd suggest to him for the following year is to increase his level of communication with his stakeholders so that he can maintain a level of openness throughout his project's duration to ensure that he stays ahead of potential roadblocks."