Providing practitioners with feedback after a peer observation
It can be very daunting when receiving feedback from either another colleague or the manager. Often people can sometimes get very anxious and automatically think they are going to hear negative comments. With this in mind, it is important that when giving feedback it is done in a constructive manner. For those practitioners who are less experienced in giving feedback, it is advised that managers work in close collaboration with these to give them some support and guidance.
It is important that practitioner who are providing feedback always give positives and not just concentrate on areas of weakness. Some people call this the good news sandwich, e.g., start with a possible then add a negative and finish on a positive, remembering this will help when giving feedback. If practitioners regularly hear a negative comment, this can start to affect their morale, which then may affect their performance. Finding the balance when giving feedback is important as practitioners do need to clearly understand their areas of weakness and how they can improve on this. When giving feedback, it can be helpful to provide examples on how to improve that particular area; this will often help the practitioner to think about things more clearly.
When talking to practitioners, ensure they are given time to respond as they need to understand fully what is expected of them, if they just nod and agree this can often show they don’t understand.This should not be a time for the practitioner to openly provide an excuse for their poor practice, it is a time for them to respond to what has been said to them.
To keep standards, high practitioners often need to receive feedback about their performance whether this is negative or positive. Some managers are reluctant to give negative comments as they feel this will affect the practitioners morale, however by giving this feedback this is the only way to help keep standards high.
Supervisions are an ideal time when employees can talk more in-depth about their performance.