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Best Practices of Giving Employee Feedback

As an HR Professional, the task of giving employee feedback must have left you wondering at some point in your career. Whether the feedback is positive or negative, the task of giving it right is extremely important for your overall employee satisfaction.

While giving employee feedback, always make sure that clear and accurate information is extremely crucial. When done right, giving employee feedback can become one of the most important parts of a company’s culture.

Employee Feedback Best Practices – What to Avoid

Sharing negative feedback with underperforming employees can be an off-putting task for most HR professionals. It’s quite easy to get overwhelmed by the adrenaline rush of emotions in such scenarios but it’s immensely crucial to maintain your composure and spew the right words.

Let’s see what to avoid when sharing negative feedback with employees:

Don’t Wait Till the Annual Review

Waiting to share constructive or negative feedback with an underperforming employee is just like waiting for a driver to tell them that they’ve taken a wrong turn. Don’t wait till their annual appraisal. Offer the corrective feedback right away, or until a heated scenario cools down.

That would give the employees a perspective of where they’re going wrong and the corrective and preventive action can be taken when the time is right.

Avoid Absolute Words

While sharing negative feedback with underperforming staff, it’s easy to get carried away and use the absolute terms like, “Oh! He always does that” or “Alas! He can never do anything productive”.

Terms like ‘always’ and ‘never’ mar an employee’s morale then and there and he’s probably no longer interested in what you are saying. All they will wait for is the next opportunity to prove you wrong.

Avoid Feeding Compliment Sandwich

It’s common for an HR professional to use the practice of ‘compliment sandwich’ when sharing negative feedback with an employee. Compliment sandwich means mincing up negative feedback to start on a positive note so that it softens the effect of negative feedback.

For instance, “Your reports were great but….”, here the statement started on a positive note and it’s so common that most of the people see it coming. However, the employee feedback best practices say that this practice needs to be avoided. This not just makes the feedback look a little ambiguous and biased.

Don’t Over-criticize Beyond a Point

Any employee, no matter how talented or experienced, can have a good hold over only certain aspects of the job. Always make sure that your feedback is based on such issues only that fall within the boundary. If you have an issue with anything that’s beyond an employee’s control, this is the place where you, as an HR, have gone wrong with not setting the clear employee expectations in the first place itself.

Employee feedback best practices state that criticizing an employee over matters that are beyond their control is sure to send them to the door leaving the organization.

Don’t Get Too Personal

While you may be having a not-so-good personal equation with a certain employee, don’t leverage that as an opportunity to go overboard while offering negative feedback with him. No matter how grave is the issue or incident; limit your feedback within the given facts, circumstances, company policies, and given expectations.

Summing Up!

The above points must be avoided by all means while sharing negative feedback with underperforming employees to maintain a healthy and open work culture. If you’re curious to know how your employees are feeling and need to gain insight over the prevalent culture, you might consider sending out an employee feedback survey.

Ditching the Obvious – How to Ask for a Raise!

It’s not always that obvious when and how to ask for a raise. It’s a tricky subject and has to be touched upon lightly. Researching and preparing a little bit for the discussion ahead will get you better results than just going there unprepared and try winging it.

Although the outcome when asking for a raise can swing both ways in “Yes” or “No”, properly preparing before can better increase your chances of success at asking for a raise.

7 Tips to Follow When Asking for a Raise

Here’s a list of best seven do’s and don’ts for when and how to ask for a raise:

1.  Ask After a Big Achievement

Bask in the glory of your big success after successful completion of a project or conducting a big sale. Tap the momentum of your success and drop in the question for your boss to fathom. The time is right, settings are ideal and is a good time to ask for a pay raise.

2.  Rehearse the Agenda

Don’t just walk into the meeting room empty-handed, before preparing a list of reasons why you should ask for a raise. Brainstorm and list all the concrete reasons, rehearse them, have a mental debate with yourself, and ensure a convincing and confident answer.

You may also want to talk about any expansion in your work responsibilities, projects you’ve mentored, new strategies adopted, or plans you have to increase the department’s progress. All these make for solid reasons when asking for a raise.

3.  Don’t Ask for a Raise Over Email

You can schedule a meeting with your boss over an email asking him for a suitable time slot to discuss but asking for a pay raise over email is crude rude. When asking for a raise in person, make sure the setting, time, and mood are correct to gauge your chances of getting a nod.

Asking for a raise during a lunch meeting is probably the best time to discuss the salary part.

4.  Don’t Compare With Your Colleague’s Salary to Make it a Reason

What your colleague is getting is a part of office gossip and just refrain bringing over this in such crucial discussion. When asking for a pay raise, just focus on your accomplishments, your contributions, and what unique you bring to the table.

It’s not necessary what you might have heard about the colleague’s salary is true. Or even if it is true, just don’t bring that up as doing that would reflect upon your low self-confidence, greed, and immaturity when asking for a raise.

5.  Have Other Options Open

Though we all understand that nobody likes to take “No” for an answer, keeping more options on the back burner is a good idea. If your boss has refused for an appraisal, try pitching in optional things to sort of compensate.

Asking for a new mobile phone, laptop passes to a certain industry seminar, sponsored training, or a company-paid holiday. Chances are your boss would agree to the smaller requests after saying no to a big one.

6.  Don’t Ask During High-Stress

Use your common sense or judgment and decide when to ask for a pay raise. Avoid bringing up the topic when the pressure at work is soaring, there are important deadlines to meet, or particularly your boss is stressed. If you can wait, talk it out during the dull phase or when your boss is relaxed.

7.  Don’t Give an Ultimatum

Be extremely careful about how to broach the topic when asking for a raise. Being confident and assertive is recommended but not demanding and rude. Mind your tone, use of words, and body language while negotiating to not come across as someone who’s harsh and can’t take no for an answer.

Don’t frame it in a way to sound like, “I need this raise, or else…”. You might not want to jeopardize your relationship with your boss in case he says No.’

Summing Up!

We understand you want to know the answer right away, but you need to act really mature when it comes to asking for a pay raise. Don’t expect them to give you an answer at the very moment unless you are at a small company where the power of decision making lies with the owner directly.

How Important Work-Life Balance is?

Work-life balance and quality of life have been getting increasingly popular with today’s working youth. While seeking work-life balance continues to be one of the most crucial factors in choosing a job offer, many companies are constantly evaluating their employee’s mental health and their policies in place to achieve a striking balance.

This breed of working class want it all in their kitty – work, travel, staying fit, eating healthy, family time and their bucket lists.

If you are a working professional whose day goes by in running errands and chasing deadlines, you are practically left with no time to nourish your personal life. This is a real struggle of Generation Y. so why not read some amazing tips on achieving a perfect work-life balance here:

10 Work-Life Balance Tips

1.  Get “Me Time”, Anyhow

Having “me time” is the most important of all work-life balance tips. Having even an hour to yourself every day will work wonders for your mood and work and you’ll be all out, ready to face the world like a boss!

So what should you do in your “me time”? Stick to what you love doing the most – going for a walk, hitting the gym, cooking, watching your favorite movie on Netflix, cuddling with your pet, or whatever random stuff you want.

2.  Go Social

At your funeral, no one will remember how great an employee you were, so make time for your friends, family, and loved ones. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance gets even more important when it comes to relationships. Devote time, go out, socialize, and stay connected anyway even if it means cooking together or going out for a walk together.

3.  Sort and Prioritize

When talking about work-life balance tips, there is no perfect recipe. However, you need to sort out your day and tasks to do to prioritize them according to commitments. Sort and make sure that you allocate adequate time to all important activities in your schedule and postpone or omit the unnecessary ones. Consider keeping an app to remind you of the important tasks to do.

4.  Share With Your Boss

If you feel, at any given point of time, things are getting way out of your hand and you are burdened with work, consider speaking to your boss or manager to let him have a piece of your mind. Chances are he might understand and consider giving you a helping hand or allows you to work from home for some days. Employers are getting increasingly aware of the mental health issues and stress at workplace and may take this on a positive note.

5.  Eat Healthy & Work Out

The hectic schedule takes a toll on your tummy and eating habits first of all. Make sure you don’t let the work stress go to your food. Always keep healthy snacks with you during office hours like nuts, fruits, and salads. Avoid tea and coffee intake and prefer to gorge on fruit juices instead.

Similarly, staying healthy is equally important too. Incorporate small habits in your routine like taking stairs, taking small breaks and walking in office, ditching smoking, do on-desk stretching exercises, and go for a morning walk before starting your day ahead.

6.  Be Organized

Staying organized goes a long way in achieving a healthy work-life balance. Keep your office bag ready before retiring to the bed. Sort your dress in the night itself and keep yourself free of running errands in the morning getting ready. Staying organized will keep your mood elevated and stress-free throughout the day.

7.  Digital Detoxing

If you feel you’re too addicted to your phone or social media, don’t let it affect you while working. Focus on the task at hand and keep the distractions at bay. Talk to your colleagues to know them better rather than surfing Facebook timeline aimlessly. Prefer switching off your gadgets, keeping them on silent mode, or keeping them in a drawer while working.

8.  Take Adequate Sleep

To achieve a healthy work-life balance, adequate sleep plays a really important role. Manage to squeeze in 7-8 hours of sleep every day and keep the distractions away while sleeping. Don’t keep your mobile phone near you and say a little prayer while going to sleep. If you’re having trouble falling asleep, see a therapist.

9.  Find a Job That Best Suits Your Needs

If you feel your current job keeps you occupied and stressed most of the time, it’s time to call it quits. There is no point in staying in a situation that doesn’t make you happy. To achieve a healthy work-life balance, look for such job options that let you have a life outside of work.

10.           Set Realistic Goals & Don’t Compare

There is no such thing as perfect work-life balance, choose what works for you keeps you happy. Set realistic goals for yourself and reward yourself when you achieve them. Don’t cringe over anything that you couldn’t accomplish.

Don’t compare your life with others and end up feeling miserable about yourself. Your life is in a different situation and needs to have a separate solution.

Always aim at thriving, not just surviving in your life. A healthy work-life balance is critical for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and it’s more than work that needs your attention. Family, friends, relationships, hobbies, socializing, keeping fit, and more are equally important too.

Learn to Stay Motivated and Inspired at Work

Hate Sunday evenings? Monday mornings are too overwhelming? Drag yourself to the office every day for the sake of "salary credited to your account" text every month? Worry not, you are not alone in the herd and we totally feel you.

While you might be in love with your job, people, and the office space. But still, you get hit by the pangs of de-motivation every now and then. A couple of times a week, you find that your motivation levels have sunken far too low and nothing seems to pep you up. You get away with doing low-quality work and you know it's true.

What to do? Luckily, there are ways you can follow to stay motivated at work and perform better while inspiring others. These will be helpful in turning your day from "When will the day end?" to "I am ready to take on the world" in 9 ways. Let's find how to stay motivated at work:

9 Ways to Stay Motivated at Work

1.         Make "Doing Your Best" A Mission

For starters, wrap your head around the commitment to doing your best each day that helps in staying motivated. If you want to do the best you can do at work, you need to commit to being motivated at the workplace and not succumb to the negativity around. Getting your job accomplished in an exceptional manner must always be on your mind.

2.         Set Up Digital Goals

Now that you've made a commitment to keeping yourself motivated at work, let's address the issue of getting the motivation flowing. Touching upon the digital means of getting and staying motivated is one factor many consider important. Trying out commitment trackers online is advisable like GoalsOnTrack or Beeminder. These apps help you define your short and long-term goals and let you be on the track to achieving them.

3.         Make a Compelling To-Do List

Now that you have short and long-term goals defined for yourself digitally, you might just want to set up a to-do list that reminds you of what small or big task needs to be done for the day. Make sure that the tasks on your to-do list are achievable, realistic, and time-framed for better results and staying motivated at work.

4.         Watch As You Tick Off the Items

While making a to-do list might be a tedious job, ticking items off it is extremely pleasurable and motivating. Completing tasks and striking off items give you an adrenaline rush and a great sense of relief while you glance back at them. The best and fool-proof way of staying motivated at work is to make a to-do list every day and follow it religiously.

5.         Take Short Breaks

If your days are jammed with work, right from start to finish, you might forget or find it impossible to take short breaks in between. But studies suggest that it's actually quite refreshing to take small tea breaks or restroom breaks to return to your desk feeling energized.

Every 2 hour or so, get up from your desk to fetch a water refill, talk to your colleague, stretches, or just a small physical walk away from your workstation away from whatever you are doing. The idea is to get a small break and come back feeling recharged.

6.         Ask for Feedback

Don't hesitate to ask for feedback, if you want to stay motivated at work. Feedback can either be scary, or it can be extremely motivating, prepare yourself for both. A good, constructive feedback can give your ego a much-needed boost and you can dwell on it for many days to come.

But if your work is lacking in some way or the other, take it as an opportunity to amp up your work and delivering outstanding results to stay motivated at work.

7.         Take Your Mind Off Uncontrollable Things

While keep worrying about the things beyond your control is not advisable in any aspect of life, work is no exception either. It's better to make a good use of your energy focusing on things you can excel in. to stay motivated at work while meeting deadlines for projects, focus on the results that can be achieved sooner and tackle tricky areas later to work with greater enthusiasm.

8.         Reward Yourself

Bribing yourself is an important tool to stay motivated at work. For instance, if you find making a certain report tedious and uninteresting, attach it with a reward, like an ice cream. Treat yourself with an ice cream once you're finished making the report. Studies suggest that rewarding yourself goes a long way in keeping oneself motivated at work and otherwise.

9.         Rev Up Your Work Closet

Shopping for yourself - you don't have to think twice about doing so. Buying new work wardrobe, accessories, and other stuff help you stay motivated at work and complete your assignments with more focus and diligence. Shopping releases a happy feeling and instantly cheers you up.

Employee Turnover - HR's Reality Check!

One thing all employers and HRs would swear dreading is high employee turnover. When your best employees leave, they leave behind mounting costs for the organizations to hire new people. Finding the best talent requires a dexterous amount of time, money, and efforts.

So when you have an organization with the most hardworking and efficient employees that have stuck around for a while, you obviously don't want them to leave and raise your hiring budget. But employees leaving is something inevitable and you've less control over. There are many reasons behind an employee leaving ranging from dissatisfaction at work, poor company culture, inadequate compensation, nasty manager, and personal reasons, at last.

Here are 6 tips on how to keep employees happy, retaining best employees and keeping low employee turnover.

6 Tips to Keep Employees Happy

1.         Inculcate an Amazing Workplace Culture

The kind of culture your workplace exhibits is an index of your employee retention or turnover. Not all organizations are born with a positive work culture but it has to be worked upon and maintained every single day. A positive work culture might stem from a plethora of reasons.

If you want your employees to come to work day in and out, offer them more than just compensation to motivate them. The traits of a great workplace culture is healthy, positive, and transparent that goes beyond employee satisfaction. You might consider additional perks like healthy snacks for your employees, in-office gym, or flexible work timings.

2.         Acknowledge Their Efforts

Sounds quite simple, isn't it? This one simple effort makes a hell lot of difference in employee's productivity and his overall state of being happy at work. Acknowledging and recognizing the efforts of your employees is something every hiring manager must do frequently to let the employees know they're being appreciated for their work.

Now there are different ways to appreciate or acknowledge an employee's efforts and depends largely on the quantum of achievement and the company policy. You might consider a pay raise, bonus, or a simple recognition of efforts in terms of an appreciation letter.

3.         Provide Avenues for Career Progression

One of the biggest reasons employees leave is lack of career progression opportunities in the current organization. Every employee wants to feel that they are progressing in their present jobs and here, HR professionals must take a note to not being stingy with the promotions.

If yours is a relatively smaller setup and moving upwards is not an option for the employees, expand the horizon of their responsibilities horizontally. Add more related responsibilities to their profile and diversify to enrich their skills and experience.

4.         Hire the Best in the First Place Itself

Your team of even the best employees won't appreciate doing more than their fair share of the workload. Every employee wants to be surrounded working with people having like-minded skills and motivation level. They don't have to carry the weight of inefficient and unenthusiastic employees on their shoulders. The biggest tip all HR professionals must follow is to hire the best talent in the first place itself to avoid complexities in the future.

5.         Offer Training & Development

Periodic training must form part of every work culture to end up having the right employees. Regular training programs, internal or external, equips them with new skills and takes them headway for promotion in the current role or higher notch. Right training and development programs inculcate a sense of loyalty among employees as they're less likely to leave the company realizing the company has invested so much in them.

6.         Listen to Your Employees

Are you listening to your employees? Are they happy at work? You won't get to know the answers to these questions unless you listen to them. Conduct regular open house sessions, feedbacks, and encourage a healthy and positive dialog at the workplace so that they can come to you to voice their opinions without any apprehension. Listening to them and taking their feedback on improvements makes them feel cared for and leads to having a better workplace.

How to Tell If You've Found the Right Company

It can take a while before you find the perfect company to work for! You might have just started in your career or been already around some companies working for a while. There might be some you would have been quite unhappy in while some might have checked all the right boxes for you and you never get bored or feeling stuck at.

It's understandable to look for another job change when you're unhappy or discontented at the present one but the question to ask here - how to know if you've found the perfect company to work for?

Consider the following signs that may tell you've found the right company to work for:

7 Signs You've Found The Right Company to Work For

1.         You Feel Pepped Up Going to Work

All days are not perfect but if going to work seems like a cake walk to you, you're with the right people. Monday blues or dreading going to the work can be tell-tale signs of working for the wrong people or being in the wrong work environment. However, if being on the job and going to office excites you every day, my friend, you are working for the perfect company.

2.         You and Your Company Share Core Common Values

If your company's core values align with your beliefs and values, it's a positive sign that you're working for the perfect company. You feel happy and satisfied with your big or little accomplishments and look forward to the big picture. Your career growth resonates with the company's growth and makes work even more enjoyable for you. While, on the other hand, if that's missing, it gets really difficult to stick around or getting forward with the company.

3.         Challenges Don't Scare You Away

While everyone understands that no company or job is totally perfect, as there may always be roadblocks or challenges that would come in one's way of work. But if you're willing and enthusiastic enough to overcome these hurdles that make your job difficult, you're more likely to grow and stay with the company for long. The point is basically to see the future of the company as well as your long-term goals beyond the hardships.

4.         Work is More Fun

While the popular saying says, "Make your passion your career and you won't have to work a day your life." If you already have a passionate career and going to work seems more like a fun idea, you have found the right company to work for. The ideal job is something that shouldn't be too stressful, leaving you feeling overwhelmed and unhappy when you're at it or home. If you're able to work hard, stay happy, and are enjoying yourself; you're in the right place.

5.         Co-Workers are a Delight to Work With

There a few black sheep everywhere, possibly in every company you've worked for. But leaving them apart, if you have a cordial equation with rest of the staff members, you're working for the right company. Being surrounded by like-minded people makes the work enjoyable and make you feel respected and noticed. Working with the people who care about you and doesn't go behind telling stories at your back is tough to find. Hold on to them!

6.         You Love Spreading Words About Your Company

If you always end up telling people about your company, job, and its people - chances are you are quite in love with your company and its people. This is a strong sign that tells you truly believe and care for the work you do and you're so smitten by the company that you want others to take notice of it. If you find yourself talking positively about your job even after business hours, you truly are working for the right company.

7.         You Have an Amazing Work-Life Balance

Feeling stressed at the workplace is normal but excessive stress is an ominous sign. It not only affects your productivity and performance but also your health. And, most of the time it means the difference between success and failure on the job. According to a survey, work-related stress is the second most common illness in Australia. This work-related stress can cause Fatigue, Muscular tension, Headaches, Heart palpitations, Depression, anxiety and many more. But, what are the factors responsible for stress in the workplace? To understand this, we need to look at the following issues that have been identified as a potential stressor at the workplace.

1. High Workload- A feeling of ‘rush’ is a universal cause of job stress. Most of the time, managers and team leaders want the task to be finished earlier than the deadline. But, deadlines are unrealistic and makes people feel rushed, under pressure and depressed. And, besides all these, ever-changing level of pressure in the work environment becomes a major cause of stress for people.

2. Job insecurity- The fear of losing the job can also become a major cause of stress. And, those who were able to retain their job are required to work overtime. Moreover, when performance demands are high, the situation becomes a roller coaster where pressure rises and drops every moment.

3. Workplace relationships- Unhealthy relationship with co-workers and supervisors can become a cause of stress for any employee. If the manager is not understanding then the graph of tension automatically increases. Besides these, discrimination, lack of trust, bad behavior, the absence of mechanism left out employee frustrated and dissatisfied.

4. Poor response mechanism- Poor response mechanism inside the organization becomes the cause of depression and stress for the employees. Stress is also magnified if employees perceive that their concerns are neglected. The lower the level of trust between the employer and employees, the higher will be the level of stress inside the organization.

5. Your roles & responsibilities- A person who answers one supervisor feel less stressed to the one who answers more than one supervisors. Hence, role ambiguity can also result in stress. In other cases, if someone is unclear about their roles and responsibilities that can also enhance the stress level.