Facilitating feedback workshops for managers and employees

Client Objective

In addition to providing practical training around using their new systems, this company also wanted to provide skills training for managers and employees to help everyone get the most out of the feedback and development process. In particular, they wanted to upskill managers around how to run effective performance development sessions and provide both positive and constructive feedback. Additionally, they wanted to provide employees with some skills for responding effectively to performance feedback and using the performance development process for their own advantage and benefit.

Situation and Challenge

This company approached People Solutions to help them develop two bespoke workshops to upskill their staff.
One of the biggest challenges they noted was that people at their organisation tended to be really nice to each other (which isn’t a bad thing!), but this often led to a reluctancy to provide any sort of negative or constructive feedback, or to have challenging conversations around performance.

Another challenge was that people tended to see the performance development process as a ‘tick and flick’ exercise and they felt that employees would benefit from some training to help them maximise the process and see it as a useful tool for their own professional development.

Solutions

People Solutions designed two workshops – one for managers and one for employees.

The manager workshop covered active listening skills to use in feedback discussions, the importance of building trust, some do’s and don’ts for effective feedback, how to prepare for and structure performance feedback sessions, having conversations at different performance levels, tips and techniques for delivering constructive feedback, and how to set collaborative goals.

The employee session covered topics and skills such as the purposes and benefits of performance feedback, preparing for and making the most of the performance development process, responding to challenging feedback constructively, turning feedback into actionable goals, and how to provide feedback upwards.

Both sessions were a balance of facilitator information and hands-on practice, with participants engaging in discussions and role plays for a significant portion of the session. We also created handouts to accompany the session, that participants could use to reflect back and remind them of the main takeaway points.

Result

The two sessions were received well by participants, with a high level of engagement in activities. The company was happy with the training content and is now able to roll it out and facilitate it themselves moving forward with other leaders and employees.