Automate all your repetitive HR tasks and save yourself hours every week to focus on your most important work.
Start a free trialGiving feedback can feel awkward, no matter how many times you’ve done it before. It’s only natural to shy away from sharing a difficult truth, after all. As humans, we’re wired to stay away from what’s uncomfortable — and giving feedback can often fall into that category.
Honest feedback isn’t something we can simply avoid though, especially in a small business where people, relationships, and communication matter hugely. These hard conversations are a necessary part of business, so it’s time to get comfortable with them.
I’ve always felt that giving feedback gets easier the more often you do it. You know what to say, how to say it, and your employees are used to hearing it. That’s why creating a feedback culture is the way forward.
In this guide, I’m sharing everything you need to know about feedback culture. I’ll explain the benefits, the challenges, and a step-by-step process for introducing (or improving) your feedback culture.
Feedback culture refers to an environment where feedback is actively welcomed. Employees are encouraged to give feedback to others, and to receive it openly from others. At the heart of feedback culture are feelings of trust and safety, and having the skills and opportunities to give and receive feedback — both good and bad.
In companies with a culture of feedback, sharing opinions and giving constructive criticism are considered normal. Feedback isn’t only given in a yearly performance review. Instead, people are encouraged to share feedback when it feels appropriate to, in a clear and meaningful way.
Having a feedback culture means your employees feel safe and secure to share what’s on their mind. This is a huge benefit in itself, but creating a culture of feedback has a range of other benefits, including:
Encouraging employees to share feedback with others helps everyone grow, learn faster, and reach goals in a way that other organisations can’t. A feedback culture allows your small business to stand out from others around you thanks to happier employees, a stronger culture, and the ability to innovate fast.
It feels like there are no downsides to a feedback culture, but that doesn’t make it easy to achieve. In my experience, creating a culture of feedback has some natural challenges that most small businesses encounter, like:
The good news is that these obstacles can be overcome. It’s possible to foster a culture of feedback within your small business at any stage, it just might take a little longer or require more of your time and energy to get started. Having the right tools and a step-by-step guide to follow can make all the difference.
A feedback culture isn’t just for big businesses with a dedicated employee experience team. I want to encourage you to build a culture of feedback within your small business — even if there’s only a handful of you. Doing this now sets you up for success in the future as you grow or as your needs change.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or want to improve the way you currently handle feedback, here’s my step-by-step guide on how to create a feedback culture. I’ve included steps that I’ve taken, and some of the initiatives we use at Charlie to support feedback within our small business environment.
To demonstrate the importance of feedback, it needs to be highly visible. The dedication to feedback culture in the work environment needs to come from the top, or other people won’t feel empowered to take action.
Openly give feedback to others, invite them to share feedback with you, and share updates on how you’ve responded to recent feedback. Act as a role model for continuous feedback culture in action and your employees will follow your lead.
For your feedback culture to succeed, your employees need to trust in you and each other. Build an environment of psychological safety and open communication, and give your team members permission to be open, honest, and candid with each other.
Employees that feel safe to take risks and fail, and to openly share thoughts with each other, feel a greater sense of belonging and safety. This sense of community makes giving and receiving feedback easier, and creates a more welcoming workplace culture. You can also read more about the psychological contract to understand employee’s expectations.
Your team members might agree with a need to give and receive feedback, but it’s hard to put that into action without a framework. Create a simple feedback process or system, set clear expectations on how it works, and give guidance on how to use it.
Make it easy for employees to give feedback by explaining how they can do this, how often you expect feedback to be given, and examples of what this could look like. Be clear on how to express a negative opinion, and set guidelines around reasonable ways to approach difficult conversations.
Once you’re happy with your guidance, publish it somewhere that all your employees can access. We’ve made our Charlie handbook public for all to see, but an alternative might be to use the document centre built into your HR software. For example, Charlie users can create and share their employee handbook directly within the platform.
Help your employees to get comfortable giving feedback by offering them training on how to do this effectively. Empower your team members to learn new feedback skills, understand how to give honest feedback, and support their professional growth so they can not only develop their own abilities but encourage others to grow too.
Use a ready-made training course, invite a trainer to come in for a live session, or put together your own guidance for employees with examples. Make your training content available for employees to access at any time, so they can refresh their knowledge before they give feedback.
As well as general training on how to give and listen to feedback, it’s useful to give your managers specific coaching on feedback and performance management. Although it should be part of everyone’s role to share feedback, managers should know how to give meaningful feedback and support employees to grow.
At Charlie, we support our managers and leaders with dedicated training on how to give constructive feedback, how to set expectations and deadlines, and how to receive feedback. We also offer guidance on two systems we use — the 4s Framework based on storytelling, and the SBI model of giving feedback.
A major barrier to giving feedback can be putting a name (or face) to the complaint or criticism. Remove this barrier and encourage more open and honest feedback by offering ways your employees can give feedback anonymously.
There are various ways you can make it easy for people to give anonymous feedback. For an in-person team, you can introduce a suggestion box in the office. A digital suggestion box is a great alternative for a hybrid or remote team. You can also use online forms, surveys, or feedback tools to offer even more ways to share feedback anonymously.
There shouldn’t only be one or two ways to give and receive feedback. For your feedback culture to be a success, there should be a range of methods people can use to share their opinions and constructive criticism.
Allow time for feedback in your team meetings, host regular one-on-one meetings or check-ins, send pulse surveys, set up a suggestion box, or host a Q&A session with the leadership team. Work with your team members to find out which methods they would use, and put them into place.
To create a strong feedback culture, it should feel almost like a habit to give and receive feedback. In the best workplaces, feedback is a natural part of working there. Make it easy for people to create a habit around feedback by removing barriers and creating opportunities for frequent feedback.
Introduce more feedback channels like the ones I’ve mentioned above, and consider how often you should run them. You could send weekly pulse surveys to check employee happiness and morale, or arrange monthly meetings with direct reports to gather or follow up on feedback. Giving regular feedback should be part of everyone’s weekly or monthly routine, with feedback sessions scheduled when it fits the team’s needs the best.
Feedback should be given when it’s needed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also improve your annual review process at the same time. A strong, effective, and meaningful review process gives you a useful evaluation tool to encourage growth and development — so spend some time considering how to improve yours.
An easy way to make a positive change is to find a way to standardise and automate some of the process. Performance management software tools can help you streamline the workflow and ensure everyone follows the same process. Another area to focus on is the performance review questions you ask, whether you seek 360-degree feedback, and how you use the feedback to create an action plan for the future.
Our approach to personal development at Charlie includes:
There are also plenty of opportunities for team members to share feedback with each other. We also use Charlie’s performance management feature to host annual performance reviews.
CHARLIE FEATURE PERFORMANCE management screenshot
As your employees get more comfortable providing feedback, you need to show that it’s listened to and acted on. Create a simple system for reviewing, following up, and acting on feedback — and find a way to share this progress with your team members.
People are more likely to engage with your approach of continuous improvement and feedback if they know they’re taken seriously. Share some of the outcomes of issues raised or ideas shared, so employees feel encouraged and empowered to share their own feedback.
Creating a healthy feedback culture is about more than installing a suggestion box or asking people for their best ideas. Use this guide and my insights from my time here at Charlie to help you put together a plan on how you can build your own feedback culture at your small business.
Your feedback culture is a valuable step in creating a better workplace, but it’s only part of the equation. If you’re dedicated to creating the kind of small business environment that your employees rave about, read our performance management guide. It contains everything you need to know about feedback, performance management, and employee development.
Have more questions about feedback culture? Here are some of the questions we get asked frequently, along with our best answers.
An open feedback culture is an environment where people feel safe and comfortable enough to share feedback with others, both good and bad. They feel a sense of psychological safety and aren’t worried about any potential repercussions about sharing honest feedback.
The steps I’ve outlined above are a great way to start building a company culture that supports and encourages feedback. Use these steps alongside feedback tools to put together a practical plan for your business.
Some people consider there to be seven key elements of effective feedback. These are: goal-referenced, tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing, and consistent.
