A new study shows that nearly 90% of employees want more formal managerial feedback–not less–as they work from home right now, but many don’t know how to ask for it.
The 2020 Performance Management Benchmark Report is part of an annual study by Reflektive, a performance management software platform. Th study uncovers that, since 2018, there has been an 89% increase in the percentage of employees who want formal performance conversations monthly or more frequently.
“Ok,” you’re thinking, “but MY employees haven’t told me that they’d like more formal reviews more often.” One of the most insightful stats from the study addresses this: 25% of the employees who’d like more feedback don’t know how to request it. This supports other studies, like one from Gallup in 2016, that found Millennials, in particular, aren’t getting the feedback from managers that they want. That study concluded that only 17% of Millennials (who make up the bulk of the workforce right now) receive the meaningful managerial feedback they’d like on a routine basis. Only 15% in this cohort confidently ask for more feedback if they need it.
Here’s the disconnect: Back to the Reflektive study, while only a quarter of respondents say they don’t know how to ask for feedback, 85% of managers said they believe there isn’t a problem—that they believe employees are clear on feedback request processes.
The coronavirus pandemic has exasperated this problem, as employees working from home tend to feel more disconnected than ever before.
“Managers need to consider how transparent and clear they are about the process, and they need to consider how they can at least ‘touch base’ with employees more often,” offers Anne Walker, The HT Group’s Director of Operations.
“What’s your ‘open door’ philosophy when it comes to virtual engagement? How do you build enough trust for employees to virtually ‘raise their hand’ when they want to talk things through with you? These are the questions you need to ask yourself, and the answers can be harder to craft the more remote employees are,” she adds.
HR Dive offers additional tips when it comes to conducting remote performance reviews. After all, as the article points out, “talking with employees often is the key to identifying problems while they are still small.”
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