One area I know a number of managers struggle with is providing feedback to their team members. They struggle in a number of areas which include, finding the time, knowing the right words to use, being apprehensive because of potential pushback and many other reasons I’m sure. Yet giving regular feedback is essential if you want to keep your team on track, focussed and motivated.
Furthermore, according to Gallup research, when managers provided weekly feedback it resulted in the following benefits:
Team Members
• who were over 5 times more likely to strongly agree they receive meaningful feedback
• who were more than 3 times more likely to strongly agree they are motivated to do outstanding work
• who were almost 3 times more likely to be engaged at work.
The Gallup research also uncovered more valuable information relating to the type of feedback provided and its impact on engaging team members. Engagement levels were impacted as follows:
• When managers provided little or no feedback, their team had a tiny 2% engagement score
• When managers focussed on the team members weaknesses, the engagement score lifted to 45%
• When managers focussed on team members strengths however, engagement levels lifted to 61%.
The challenge is certainly there for managers to work on providing more regular feedback and focussing in on reinforcing their team members strengths. This should be the easiest feedback to provide as everyone likes to receive praise, so there is really no excuse to not do this more often.
The benefits of having your team members motivated and engaged are huge and in a retail environment will result in team members committed to providing an amazing customer experience amongst many other positive things.
It’s therefore critical that store managers are taught how to be effective coaches and providing weekly feedback becomes an important KPI.
Roger Simpson – CEO, The Retail Solution and Author of “The Ultimate Retail Sales Experience” With over 35 years’ industry experience, Roger Simpson is recognized as Australia’s #1 Authority on customer ROI in the retail industry and as a global expert on staff coaching, customer service, and selling skills.
