From
my understanding, in the past working generations to give someone feedback
meant that his or her performance was being judge. In other words, someone
receiving feedback during this generation was seen and taken as a sign of not
being good enough or not doing your best in and for the company. Basically, it
was an insult. Back then it was bad to give someone a suggestion on how they
could improve. No one liked being told that they needed to do better because it
made them feel inadequate for the job.
Comparing
the past working generations to the now (Gen Y) working generation, the newer
generation looks for interaction with people and ways to improve in the
workplace. We (me included as part of Gen Y) like and sometimes feel the need
to receive feedback. We want to improve because we like to stay active, show
others what we are capable of doing, we want to grow, learn, and not become
obsolete. We are aware that businesses are complex, not every department is the
same, technology changes, and decisions must be made quickly. In order for us
to learn how to do this we must continue to learn, grow, remain up to date, and
most important be flexible enough to expand our horizon of knowledge. In my own
personal opinion, because technology was none existent or was very limited for
its time, the prior generations did not have to worry about the now ever
changing business environment. Since technology has advanced, businesses have
advanced with it.
In
the perspective of the importance of goals to performance, every organization
has always created goals for employees to accomplish. But, in the past
generations employees did not have personal goals such as perform better, learn
how to use excel, etc. The generation Y does actually set these types of goals
for themselves as there is always a new program being invented. Again, in my
opinion, it is because we feel the need to not become obsolete and stay up to
date with what we have learned and interests us. Majority of us in Gen Y are
hungry for knowledge and improvement.
During
my working years, I would daily give feedback to the team, as the type of job
that we were involved in required it. As a team, we were always busy dealing
with customers. We were part of a Starbucks store who was constantly breaking
records of monthly sales; so, to sit down or breakaway from the main floor to
give feedback was really hard to do. In my point of view, the supervisor (being
the only one able to leave the main floor) should’ve provided a more detailed
and continuous feedback to the team instead of waiting for the yearly
performance review to tell employees how they did throughout the year. It
seemed unfair that employees would get “punished” financially on their wage
increase because of the supervisor was never present to give the team feedback
and goals to meet individually.
In
part of giving constant feedback to my team, I always did receive feedback from
them as well. At times, it did feel uncomfortable for some of them to give
feedback to their shift leader (me) but I always tried my best to ease into the
conversation to make them feel at ease, that it was ok and I wanted to receive
the feedback. From what I have learned thus far, it is very important to have
360-degree feedback. “360-degree feedback systems gather data from multiple
raters, including direct reports, peers, supervisors, customers and the
employee” (Nelson & Haertel, 2000). This form of gathering and receiving
feedback ensures a 360-degree view of performance by understanding what the
goals are, mission, expectation, and so on. In other words, it allows both the
employee and management to work together to set specific, hard goals for the
improvement of the employee. This also allows the employee to gain a clear
understanding of his or her behavior in the workplace and how others view him
or her in terms of performance.
Reflecting
on my past performance and work experience, I do find it easier to receive
targeted feedback for my improvement and it has also led to more engagement and
benefits. You have to want the feedback and want to improve in order to not
take it personally or as a bad thing. Meaning, if you give feedback to someone
who isn’t looking for feedback, you would be wasting your time and he or she
would probably just get annoyed by you. When I’m about to receive feedback, I
try to take a moment to breath deeply and open my mind. This way a bad remark
of any sort is not taken so personally, it doesn’t seem mean, and it does not
catch me for surprise. It just makes me feel prepared by calming my mind and
focusing on the positive aspect of the feedback. I believe having specific
goals and receiving targeted feedback would also lead to more engagement,
higher performance and benefits. As a result, this would lead to becoming more
committed to learn, grow, rise to the occasion when needed, be more effective,
efficient, communicate more clearly, know what is expected and so on. I just
feel like there would be benefits for me instead of drawbacks on receiving
feedback. “The information obtained from feedback can be used to regulate or
improve future performance and may also serve as a motivational function when
it provides information about outcomes associated with work behavior” (Miluwi
& Rashid, 2012).
Reference:
Miluwi, J. O.,
& Rashid, H. (2012). The impact of an assigned performance goal on
'feedback seeking behaviour', human performance. Drishtikon : A Management
Journal, 3(2), 252-287. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1477997840?accountid=27203
Nelson, J.,
& Haertel, J. (2000). 360-degree feedback mirrors performance. Credit
Union Executive Journal, 40(5), 38. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/209457514?accountid=27203
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