Focused Feedback

In this article:

• What is Focused Feedback?
  
• When Should we use Focused Feedback?
  
• Launching a Focused Feedback Cycle
  
• Providing a Focused Feedback Summary
  
• Sharing the Focused Feedback Summary with Employees
  
• Closing the Loop

What is Focused Feedback?

Focused Feedback is a new way to conduct Feedback that we particularly recommend to customers who are new to Feedback or want to position their employees to take action on the most important feedback that they receive.

Focused Feedback allows you to collect feedback for employees and make the managers of those employees responsible for reviewing and summarizing that feedback. Managers then share their summary, rather than the verbatim Feedback, with their employees. This takes the guesswork out of feedback by allowing your employees to focus on the most critical takeaways of the feedback they've received.

In addition to the employee's direct manager, any upline managers or Admin users can write an employee's Focused Feedback Summary. 

When should we use Focused Feedback? 

We recommend using Focused Feedback in the following situations: 

If you're new to Feedback:

If you haven't launched Feedback before or you're hesitant about introducing Feedback into your workflow, we recommend beginning with Focused Feedback, which can help ensure your employees have a consistent experience with Feedback. We think Focused Feedback is an excellent first step to developing a strong, feedback-receptive culture. 

If you want to get Feedback from multiple voices, but still make it easy for employees to act on feedback:

If your organization conducts 360 Feedback sessions or any Feedback process in which multiple people are giving Feedback to one individual, your goal should be to highlight the critical action items that an employee needs to know without overwhelming them. Focused Feedback can help you accomplish this. 

 

Launching a Focused Feedback Cycle

 

To launch a Focused Feedback cycle, click and expand Administration in the left-hand navigation menu, then click Feedback. From this page, select either Single Cycles or Automated Cycles.

On the next page, select the Focused Feedback Cycle by clicking Select on the corresponding card. 

1. Cycle Setup

After confirming the Feedback type, you'll see the Cycle Setup page. 

• Cycle Type: Indicates whether the cycle is Single or Automated
• Cycle Name: The title of the Cycle that feedback recipients and providers will see
• About this Cycle: Optionally, add any instructions or context for more effective feedback 
• Manager Analytics: Check this box to give managers access to analytics for their hierarchy

The Advanced Options card has additional options to fine-tune your cycle. Click the drop-down arrows to go into greater detail and edit the default settings.

• Focused Feedback Mode: Toggle Focused Feedback on/off
• Who will select feedback providers? Choose between:
  • People receiving feedback
  • Managers
  • Administrators 
• Who will see feedback? Choose between:
  • People receiving feedback 
  • Managers & upline managers
• Are answers confidential? Choose between:
  • Answers/comments are attributed to feedback providers
  • Answers/comments are attributed but do not display a confidentiality statement on the survey
  • Answers/comments are confidential*

*If you are using Feedback Groups, we do not recommend setting answers/comments to confidential, because this will require each group to meet the minimum response threshold in order for managers to access the feedback their employees received. 

Click Save and Continue.

2. Feedback Recipients

Next, on the Feedback Recipients page, you will specify the employees who should receive feedback. You can also import feedback providers for each employee within this section.

Clicking Add Feedback Recipients opens a modal to specify who is invited to provide feedback. After selecting the employee(s) to provide feedback, click the Select a Template drop-down to specify the feedback templates the recipients will use.

After specifying the employee(s) and template, click Add People to add your recipients. 

You will then see a list of table with the added feedback recipients. Other details are also available,  i.e. the selected template, launch date and more actions via the ⋮ icon. You can select the ☐ at the top to make bulk edits. 

Notice you can click Add Feedback Recipients and Import Feedback Providers to make further edits. 

To move onto the next step, click Save and Continue.

3. Set Schedule & Milestones

In the Set Schedule & Milestones section of the cycle setup, you will see two new milestone dates that are specific to Focused Feedback cycles.

• Focused Feedback Is Due is the date that managers are expected to have summarized the feedback their direct reports received
• Employee Visible Date is the date that direct reports should expect to have visibility into the Focused Feedback summaries provided by their managers.
  
  • Rather than waiting for the Employee Visible Date, Admins can specify if direct reports should see their Focused Feedback immediately upon completion by their managers. Admins can check the ☐ Immediately? icon in the Employee Visible Date card at the end of the cycle timeline. 

Each of the dates associated with a milestone can be edited by clicking the date & time. Reminders for the providers can also be added or deleted as necessary. 

Once the cycle launches, Feedback providers will give feedback to the recipients as they would for any other cycle. The primary addition to the Focused Feedback cycle is that managers 
will receive emails reminding them to provide a summary of the feedback that their direct report has received three days before the Focused Feedback Is Due date. 

Providing a Focused Feedback Summary

When an employee has received feedback, the employee's manager, upline manager and any Admins can view the employee's feedback and provide the Focused Feedback Summary. 

To view the employee's feedback, find the Feedback cycle and click the associated ⋮ icon before clicking View Feedback. After viewing the feedback, click Create Focused Feedback in the top-right to enter Focused Feedback Mode.

Alternatively, from the Feedback home page, you can also click Add Focused Feedback to immediately enter Focused Feedback Mode. 

Upon entering Focused Feedback Mode, you'll notice three columns:

• Focused Feedback Cycle: Review the feedback your employee received.
• Focused Feedback for Employee: Enter a summary of all the employee's feedback, click Save to add the Focused Feedback.
• Feedback Editors: View the other employees who can also write Focused Feedback summaries and add other users who should also be able wo write Focused Feedback summaries. Best Practice tips are also displayed here to help with encouraging and effective feedback.

 

Sharing the Focused Feedback Summary with Employees

When you are satisfied with the Focused Feedback and ready to share the summary with the employee, click Preview Summary in the bottom-right. 

This will display a compact view of what the employee will see. To make any edits before sharing, click Edit Summary, otherwise, click Share Feedback with Employee  to share your Focused Feedback Summary. 

There will be a modal with information regarding whether future edits can be made and how the employee will be notified of their Focused Feedback Summary. Click Yes, Share Now to finalize and share your Focused Feedback Summary.

The employee will then receive an email notification that their manager has shared a Feedback summary with them; from that email they will be able to open and view the summary. 

Closing the Loop

We recommend managers and their employees to go through the Focused Feedback together. 

Managers and employees both have the option to use the Feedback Conversation Booster to add the Focused Summary directly into their 1-on-1 conversation.