I love feedback. Even little positive words can raise your spirit or boost your moment. It’s crucial to foster a culture of feedback, or feedforward, in the workplace. In remote environments, it’s even more important to discuss things in a constructive manner because it’s easy to understand someone’s message in a wrong way without seeing impressions, etc.
It’s really important to have a culture where giving and receiving feedback is encouraged when you’re working remotely. Here’s why:
- Boosting Morale: Even small words of encouragement can make remote workers feel better and more motivated. When people are working from different locations, this kind of positive feedback can help combat feelings of loneliness.
- Getting Better at Work: Feedback helps remote workers know what they’re doing well and where they can improve. Since remote managers can’t always see what their team is doing, feedback becomes a vital tool for getting better at their jobs.
- Building Trust: When team members can openly share feedback, it creates trust among them. This trust is important for remote teams to work well together, even when they’re not in the same place.
- Clearer Communication: Remote work often involves a lot of written communication, which can sometimes lead to misunderstandings. Regular feedback ensures that everyone understands each other and that expectations are clear.
- Growing Professionally: Remote workers might miss out on learning opportunities that happen when they’re physically around their colleagues. Feedback can provide guidance for getting better at their jobs and growing professionally.
- Solving Problems: Sometimes conflicts or problems come up in remote teams because of misunderstandings. A feedback culture encourages talking openly about these issues and solving them before they become bigger problems.
- Adapting Quickly: Remote work can change quickly, and feedback helps teams adjust and make changes when needed. This is really important in fast-paced remote work situations where being flexible is crucial.
I stumbled across a term I hadn’t familiarized myself with before: feedforward.
Feedforward is about focusing on an individual’s development in the future instead of rating and judging a person’s performance in the past. The best form of feedforward enables people to see their areas for improvement – ways they could step into new positions and possibilities.
The attached image shows the differences between feedback and feedforward
(source: https://lnkd.in/d4KnKQkc).
An interesting approach I think 💡
A couple of resources to find out more about feedforward:
🔖 Marshall Goldsmith article: https://lnkd.in/dGtx_5aU
🔖 Trg article: https://lnkd.in/d2dDQ5Ca
🔖 Tandem HR article: https://lnkd.in/d9u6ugez
