Introduction
Reviewing employee's performance and offering feedback is a critical role of supervisors and managers when managing employees' performance. As a manager, giving honest feedback, providing a constructive solution, without hurting or affecting employees' self-esteem and morale is the toughest responsibility in reviewing employees' performance. The workshop will help the supervisors and the manager build up employees' confidence since positively conducting performance reviews will encourage them to work harder. Effective training provides employees with the necessary skills and knowledge to efficient performance. In this case, 100 managers are attending a training workshop for two days, which will be explained on how to use effective skills. The managers will obtain the necessary skills during this training to give effective feedback when reviewing employees’ performance. They will also acquire knowledge as to why effective feedback is important, and features of effective feedback. The two-day workshop training will also include examples of feedback techniques that the managers will use as well as provide a process of giving effective feedback.
The objectives
Importance of effective feedback skills
Feedback is an important element in an organization and is recurrent. Studies show that employees prefer receiving feedback, whether positive or negative than giving no feedback at all. Managers and supervisors give feedbacks as a way of letting employees know where they are and where they are headed regarding goals and expectations. Effective performance review increases employee engagement leading to enhanced job satisfaction, increased engagement, and higher achievement levels. Companies invest more in training on how to use effective feedback skills, even during difficult economic times as it produces improved financial results. The objective of reviewing employees' performance is to guide the employees through the supply of information to support an employee on effective behavior or to guide them towards a successful performance ( Favero, Meier, & O’Toole, 2016) .
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Delivering Effective Feedback
During the training workshop, the managers should be trained on how to deliver specific employee feedback, since general comments may leave the employee in the dark and confused, especially if it is constructive criticism. The managers should receive training on how to make feedback constructive, for example, during role-playing; they should focus on description rather than judging another. Avoidance of evaluative language will help the individuals respond to the feedback in a non-defensive manner. During the training, the trainers should focus on observation and not interfere with individual’s behavior.
Features of effective feedback
Feedback is most effective when delivered when the issue at hand is still fresh in the employer's and employee’s memory. However, that does not mean the employer does not take quality time to prepare for the feedback session: he/she must take time as it is important as any other business meeting. Effective feedback should be based on equal standards fairly applied across all age brackets, genders, and races. The effective process of giving constructive feedback involves: stating the primary purpose of the feedback, describing your observations, offering the other person a chance to respond, offering specific suggestions and lastly, expressing your support ( Young, Davis, Malhotra, Russell, & Clegg, 2015) .
The training method to be used
It is important to address organization constraints when designing and developing a training program as they influence many decisions such as designs of training and the type of training (Blanchard and Thacker, 2013). In this case, the training workshop will be 8hours long divided into two days. Each day will cover the same information. Thus, 50 managers will attend one-day training while the remaining 50 will attend the training on next day. There are different approaches to training, from skills training to social training.
Role play
Role-play is an effective training method for achieving behavior change and should aim at ensuring positive reinforcement rather than punishing the trainees. Each participant is offered a role to play which will help in developing communication skills and interpersonal skills, improve their conflict resolution, and help in group decision making. To role play, the trainee is given relevant information as per the roles description, objectives, emotions, responsibilities, and concerns. The trainee develops insights into another’s behavior and its effect on others. This training program will require ten sessions to train the 50 managers every day.
Case study
Case studies will provide the managers with some practical solutions and will enable the trainees to see the importance of giving effective feedback in performance reviews. During the training, for the case studies, trainers can use movies or textbook style cases to provide the trainees with equal opportunity to interact with each other and trainer. And with role playing the managers (trainees) will practice and demonstrate the techniques learned through case studies and lectures and get feedback. The training program should be as interactive as possible, and the trainees should take ownership of the learning by engaging in the training process.
Lecture
The trainees should have a series of lectures and other formal learning processes such as seminars during the two-day workshop training. The purpose of having lectures training programs is to teach the managers declarative knowledge about how to perform effective feedback and demonstrate their testing through testing. Simple overheads are used in this training program.
The instructional media and equipment
The lecture method may seem boring to some trainees, and it is advisable to use other methods such as games or videos as ice breakers between sessions to make the training interesting. Sitting through more than 2hours of lectures without any activity except taking notes can be challenging for active and reflective learners. Group discussion and other problem-solving activities should be effective in group interactions.
Logistical arrangements
Room set-up: For the roleplay section, with a group of 50 trainees, the room should have ten breaks off to form five groups with at least 5trainees. Two trainees may partake in the role play while the rest three provide feedback. The trainers should point out both positive and negative things that each performed during the role-play. When the trainees are both emotionally and physically comfortable in small groups, they are better able to focus all their attention on training. This design will have ten sessions since there are many groups.
Room set-up for lectures: Since the discussion is a requirement in this training technique, the class size will be limited to 25 students, thus dividing the group into two. This arrangement will allow the instructor to involve all the students in partaking in the discussion. Based on this design, there will be four sessions for two days with each session having a minimum time of 2-3 hours for an interactive workshop. An interactive workshop for the trainees will help in gathering and generating ideas among them (Pavelin, Pundir, & Cham, 2014).
Conclusion
Manager’s ability to give honest and effective feedback is vital as it reinforces how well workers are performing and which areas require improvement. Providing effective communication enhances the skills of the employees, in that, if managers offer inadequate feedback to the employees, they may become defensive which may result in the organization losing potential innovation and benefits accrued from engagements. Training allows employees meet their current job specifications and prepare them for possible changes in the job. Training is an opportunity to learn and is only achieved through many factors such as training methods, the motivation, and organization’s learning environment.
References
Blanchard, P. N., & Thacker, J. (2013). Effective Training, systems, strategies, and practices. Pearson Education.
Favero, N., Meier, K. J., & O’Toole, L. J. (2016). Goals, trust, participation, and feedback: Linking internal management with performance outcomes. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory , 26 (2), 327-343.
Pavelin, K., Pundir, S., & Cham, J. A. (2014). Ten simple rules for running interactive workshops. PLoS Comput Biol , 10 (2), e1003485. Retrieved from http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003485
Young, W., Davis, M., McNeill, I. M., Malhotra, B., Russell, S., Unsworth, K., & Clegg, C. W. (2015). Changing behaviour: successful environmental programmes in the workplace. Business Strategy and the Environment , 24 (8), 689-703. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bse.1836/full
