Month: August 2024

Conversations, Feedback, Recognition – A Comprehensive Guide

Posted on by nGAGE Team

In the past five years, the hybrid work model has become the new normal. But how do you stay connected with employees and keep track of performance in a virtual workplace? Conversations, feedback, and recognition (CFR) is the performance management tool for the job.

Reaching objectives and key results (OKRs) takes transparency between teammates and management. In his book Measure What Matters, John Doerr describes CFR as the team communication that makes OKRs achievable.

What is Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition?

CFR is a performance management model that makes feedback a regular workplace ritual. It provides a platform for setting and achieving goals with three components:

  • Conversations – frequent, open communication between employee and manager, focused on progress toward goals
  • Feedback – regular evaluations that keep teams on track, working together, and striving for growth
  • Recognition – public and private praise of a job well done, rewarding employees for their hard work

Unlike annual performance reviews, conversations, feedback, and recognition are directly linked to the OKR cycle.

Routine conversations serve as progress reports. They keep OKRs public, performance transparent, and workflow reflexive. Managers stay engaged with their team’s goals, helping them reflect on milestones and obstacles.

A well-established feedback culture ensures that the workforce is dedicated to continuous improvement. It’s a two-way exchange. Both managers and employees share actionable ideas and provide timely, constructive guidance.

It’s important to celebrate your employees’ wins, too. Visible progress and meaningful contributions should be recognized in regular meetings. Their success is your success.

What are the Benefits of Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition?

Adopting a new feedback model takes time and resources – what makes conversations, feedback, and recognition worth the effort?

There’s much to be gained from a human-centric approach to goal-setting. CFR recognizes that employees are an organization’s most vital asset – it prioritizes individual growth, accountability, and morale.

These are the results.

Continuous Feedback

Rather than limiting in-depth feedback to annual performance reviews, CFR ensures a constant cycle of feedback and growth.

Frequent self-reflective discussions help managers stay on top of employees’ strengths and weaknesses. This allows the company to be responsive in providing workshops and training opportunities.

Remote Employee Support

In a hybrid workplace, it’s no easy task to bring everyone together for in-person performance reviews. For fully remote employees, it may even be impossible.

The CFR model is built around interactions that can happen virtually. Whether it’s shared during a Zoom meeting or dropped over text, frequent feedback keeps everyone on the same page.

Employee feedback software offers an even simpler channel, allowing employees to leave concise, meaningful reviews for anyone, at any time.

Feedback Culture

In an effective conversation, feedback, and recognition model, everyone is a participant. All employees engage in constructive, goal-oriented conversations until the routine becomes a habit.

Long-lasting culture is founded on group habits. So, as people get better at giving, receiving, and implementing feedback, a healthy feedback culture soon follows. And when employees feel central to the improvement of their company, engagement levels rise.

Peer-to-Peer Learning

Peer reviews allow employees to learn from and teach their colleagues. Good feedback offers potential solutions, which can help teammates reorient their goals. A problem shared is a problem halved.

Collaborative learning increases trust, as individuals naturally approach teammates who push them to improve.

Better Relationships

Communication is key to building strong relationships. It’s no surprise that employees want to connect with their managers and benefit from regular peer feedback.

Sharing frequent feedback and praise is a sign that you’re paying attention – the more specific you are, the more understood the recipient will feel. Teammates who understand each other collaborate more effectively and run into fewer conflicts.

When managers routinely invite and implement feedback, they build better relationships with their employees too.

6 Strategies for Effective Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition

Establishing a healthy feedback culture takes hard work from everyone involved. To ensure the value outweighs the challenge, here are six strategies for a smoother transition to the CFR model.

1. Combine CFR with OKRs

Conversations, feedback, and recognition should always be goal-focused, not an excuse to air grievances or give false praise. Make the most of your time in meetings by having guided discussions and keeping feedback on topic.

The simplest way to do this is to revolve the conversation around forward-thinking questions such as:

  • “How are your OKRs going?”
  • “What challenges are you facing?”
  •  “How can I help you reach your goals?”

2. Create a Routine

Continuous feedback models quickly fall apart without a routine. Many employees and managers find feedback exchange intimidating, especially with the fanfare surrounding performance reviews.

So make a habit of it. Integrate conversations, feedback, and recognition into the regular workday. Schedule feedback sessions, weekly check-ins, and one-on-ones to keep everyone in the loop and striving for improvement.

3. Establish Clear Expectations

It’s important to set the company standard for what conversations, feedback, and recognition should look like.

There should be no confusion about:

  • when it’s appropriate to give feedback and to whom,
  • how to phrase it fairly and constructively,
  • why you’re giving it, and
  • how acting on it will help company or team goals.

4. Implement Feedback Transparently

If managers leave employee feedback unanswered for too long, they risk creating a culture of “rules for thee but not for me.” Leadership should be prepared to act on feedback promptly – just as they expect employees to.

Inform employees how and when their feedback will be implemented. Let them know what suggestions aren’t achievable and why. If employees feel their feedback isn’t valued, they’ll stop giving it.

5. Make Feedback Safe

Many employees are reluctant to share upward feedback for fear of repercussions. In a healthy feedback culture, all employees must feel safe to voice their concerns.

Not everyone will be ready to give or receive continuous feedback right away. But that’s what conversations are for. Be respectful and flexible – instead of forcing the issue, ask them how the process could be more comfortable for them.

6. Diversify Your Feedback Channels

Not everyone is comfortable exchanging feedback the same way. Fortunately, there are many possible mediums for it:

  • Text vs. face-to-face
  • Group vs. one-on-one
  • Anonymous vs. identified

Quicker, more visual feedback can make the process more engaging. Employee feedback software allows employees to give feedback online in just a few clicks.

And there’s no reason to toss out traditional performance reviews. Through monitoring trends and highlighting growth, CFR is ideal for tracking performance trajectory. That leads to a far more comprehensive end-of-year evaluation.

Looking to Simplify Your CFR?

The conversations, feedback, and recognition model is the most effective way to link feedback to the OKR cycle. But it isn’t always easy to keep track of and make time for feedback during regular meetings.

With nGAGE powering your CFR, your employees can share in-the-moment feedback and recognition wherever they are. It will:

  • Collect feedback all in one place for a fully automated 360-degree evaluation.
  • Let employees know when they’re falling behind on their contributions.
  • Use templates and rating systems to keep the feedback focused.

Leave the administrative tasks to nGAGE so you can concentrate on reaching your goals.

Still Missing out on Gamification in the Workplace?

Posted on by Maha Yaser

Gamification in the workplace is not just another trend or buzzword. It is a growing need for organizations to maintain a competitive edge. In fact,  70% of the 2,000 largest organizations globally are utilizing it.

However, many businesses – possibly even your own – may yet to benefit from gamification. So, let’s go over its details to ensure you do not miss out on it for long.

What is Gamification in the Workplace?

You may already be familiar with the term gamification. Basically, it is the process of adding elements of games to non-game activities.

Take learning for instance. Teachers come up with activities that include badges, leaderships, and rewards to enhance student engagement and motivation.

Gamification at work is no different. It entails applying game design elements and principles to different work-related tasks and activities. For instance, your business can include points, badges, challenges, and rewards to everyday work activities.

What makes it so effective is that it taps into the brain’s natural wiring. Basically, getting a reward after performing a certain action triggers the feel-good neurotransmitter known as dopamine. This makes individuals more likely to perform the action again – that too eagerly in hope of getting the same result.

This reward compulsion loop and the natural dopamine fix can help your business in many ways. In fact, dopamine can positively affect motivation, memory, behavior, mood, and attention and learning. Therefore, you do not only make employees feel happier, but you also ensure they do their work better.

Benefits of Gamification in the Workplace

In addition to shots of dopamine, bringing gamification into your business can deliver a number of advantages. Here are some that you may like to have at your organization.

Better Learning and Training

Corporate training is usually an uphill task, especially when motivation levels are declining. Thankfully, gamification can help immensely with both.

A study by KPMG uncovered that gamified training can significantly improve employee performance. The company rolled out training called KPMG Globerunner across 24 offices and analyzed performance based on fees collected, number of clients served, number of business opportunities, and opportunities from both existing and new clients.

Upon analyzing results, KPMG found out that trainees increased the fees collected by over 25%. The number of clients also increased up to 16%, and the opportunities these new clients provided hit 22%.

Where employees were more engaged with their jobs, these percentages were even higher. For instance, their total business opportunities were 8% more while opportunities were 10% and 7% more for existing and new clients respectively.

Normalization of Constant Feedback

While playing games, players receive immediate feedback. Even while losing, games offer signals to indicate they’re far from winning. This makes them try re-strategizing to achieve their goal or resort to tools.

Applying this to work tasks, especially training, employees get to know whether they are falling behind or reaching their goal in real time. This boosts their motivation levels while making them more open (and even ready) to receive feedback.

In fact, employees will no longer view feedback as an intrusion or dread it. They will consider it a necessity to win.

Higher Appeal to the Younger Workforce

The younger workforce is a digitally native workforce. Therefore, their motivational and behavioral patterns differ from older generations. This means organizations need to employ techniques that best match their learning and skill development styles.

Using gamification in the workplace can be the key to engaging younger workers. Take for instance millennials. They have grown up in a digital, simple, and interactive world. It will not be wrong to even say that playing games is in their nature.

Stronger Emotional Connection

Gamification in the workplace has the power to connect you to your employees. Take for instance using gamified learning modules. These help employees become invested in what they are actively learning. Therefore, they try their best not to make mistakes or approach challenges in a laid-back manner.

This may require some additional steps such as allowing employees to personalize their avatars or add their employee ID numbers. However, it will further strengthen their emotional connection with whatever training program you offer.

Skills Development

When engaged in games, players get to hone their multi-tasking, knowledge-sharing, and problem-solving skills. This is no different while implementing gamification in the workforce.

Employees can be handed challenges that allow them to improve their ability to juggle multiple responsibilities at the same time. Therefore, they learn how to multi-task in a highly interactive environment.

Informal discussions on how to pass challenges will further promote knowledge sharing within your business. People love discussing how well they fared, so you can give them a push to open up and talk about their successes freely. This can inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

Finally, gamified learning or tasks allow employees to find solutions to different problems. For example, you can propose a challenge prompting employees to come up with well-researched solutions for a serious issue you face. You may be surprised at some of the innovative and creative responses you get.

Examples of Gamification in the Workplace

With the benefits of gamifying your business covered, it is time to explore the different ways you can implement it.

Game-Based Learning

As mentioned a few times already, gamified training has the potential to improve performance and learning retention. You can combine the resources created by your L&D department with instructional design to create more interactive training.

For instance, you can use trivia or games to let them gain points. The competition along with the rewards they get with the points can make a world of difference.

Interactive Leaderboards

You can go beyond on-the-spot recognition to feature employees on leaderboards. Not only can this bring some friendly competition, but it can also increase engagement levels for all. Besides, the organization itself benefits since you get to identify top-performing employees.

Company Competitions

If there is one thing that most cultures need today, it is the element of fun. Therefore, consider implementing gamification in the workplace to simply allow employees to kick back and have some fun. Especially if you wish to improve morale and help the workforce feel great working with you.

For example, you can propose a fun challenge such as ‘Dress up for Independence Day’ and select the best costume for that day. This will motivate everyone since such challenges are easy and accessible to all.

Employee Points Reward Programs

Here is another simple yet effective idea for gamification in the workplace. A points reward program can work well for all your employees.

However, if you wish to maximize its benefits, combine it with an existing incentive program. For instance, you can have your workforce collect points by completely challenges AND via your employee referral program.

How to Get the Most from Gamifying Your Workplace

Whichever gamification technique you decide for your workplace, you need to keep in mind the following.

  • Get Leadership Buy-In – It is important that your organization’s leaders take part in your gamification efforts. This will inspire other employees to follow their lead.
  • Communicate Enthusiasm Across the Organization – Taking this step will boost employee participation and add to their comfort while engaging with your initiatives.
  • Gamify Tasks Employees are Less Focused On – Prioritize tasks that employees don’t pay much attention to or consider boring. Interactive gamification will shift their stance and help you bring on the necessary behavioral changes.
  • Always Measure Outcomes – To ensure you get the most from your gamification initiatives, you should be able to measure the outcomes.
  • Be Prepared for the Long Haul – You need to be patient as results will take some time. After all, employees will need to master interacting with your solution to get the best results.

Can’t Wait to Introduce Gamification in the Workplace?

Then we have something for you – nGAGE at Work. This platform allows you to gamify several aspects of your organization to pave its way to the top. Check out the app today and set your organization for success.

Continuous Feedback Loop: Definition, Importance & Strategies

Posted on by nGAGE Team

As business Agility becomes the standard, many companies are starting to adopt the “continuous feedback loop” model of performance evaluation. But what does that mean, and how does it compare to traditional annual performance reviews?

The truth is that annual reviews are just too few and far between to be effective or efficient.

Studies have shown that employees want specific, frequent, and actionable feedback. When an annual review rolls around, it’s often far too late to fix the problems that affected performance.

Instead of focusing on how last year’s performance was lacking, continuous feedback loops look at what changes can be made now.

What Is a Continuous Feedback Loop?

The continuous feedback loop is a strategy for exchanging feedback and putting it into practice on a regular basis.

Gone is the lag time between one performance review and the next. Instead, routine one-on-ones and group check-ins follow up on team members’ progress in reaching their performance goals.

This iterative model ensures that every piece of feedback is understood, acted on, and used to drive positive change. It creates a highly skilled, Agile workforce that can quickly adapt to new challenges.

But continuous feedback isn’t just managers making better workers out of their employees. It’s a two-way conversation – employees also offer their input to management, making a better work environment for themselves. In a healthy feedback culture, everyone benefits.

When there’s a continuous flow of ideas, suggestions, and solutions, a growth mindset naturally follows. So, rather than a source of stress, giving and receiving feedback becomes a valued workplace ritual.

How Important Is a Continuous Feedback Cycle?

In a continuous feedback cycle, your company – and the individuals who make it possible – never stop evolving.

Managers in touch with their teams’ strengths and weaknesses can better respond to their needs when it counts. Employees keep superiors accountable for issues in systems and communication.

The result is a system of continuous learning that puts people and their goals first.

It comes with many benefits – here are just a few that a continuous feedback loop can bring to your company.

Boost Employee Development

It goes without saying that continuous feedback is designed to generate continuous improvement.

Employees who are constantly building skills and optimizing their workflow become the best possible people for their roles. When they know what’s needed, they can adapt to their role as it evolves. That means their value in your company is always on the rise.

Continuous feedback loops keep managers attentive and responsive to employees’ learning and development.

Increase Employee Engagement

Employees thrive on feedback, whether positive of negative, and they tend to want more of it than they’re given. Taking advantage of that fact yields better outcomes for their performance and their job satisfaction. It’s a win-win.

But don’t stop at feedback for employees.

When so many workers resign because they feel their feedback isn’t valued, it’s clear that power imbalance damages morale.

A continuous feedback loop can empower employees to participate in making company-wide decisions. If they can be part of the change, they’ll feel more connected to the company’s trajectory.

Identify Immediate Challenges

Team members struggle to stay on top of backlogged issues when performance reviews happen only once or twice a year. And because annual reviews quickly seem outdated, managers often assess recent performance in a vacuum instead of revisiting old data.

Feedback must be reflexive to keep up with the demands of an unpredictable, fast-paced industry. In other words, it must be made Agile.

Agile continuous feedback loops respond to issues in real time, lowering recency bias and keeping action plans updated.

Improve Trust and Transparency

In a culture of constant feedback exchange, conversations about improvement are always happening. Managers and employees are both clear about their expectations of each other while being honest about what’s realistic.

By making goal-setting and decision-making processes open, transparent, and collaborative, continuous feedback loops foster trust between all levels of management. And better relationships create a more loyal workforce.

5 Strategies to Ensure Continuous Feedback for Employees

It’s a challenge to get an entire organization on board with big changes, but the key is to start simple.

Take a look at these five tips to kick off and maintain your continuous feedback loop.

1. Start a Weekly Feedback Session

Turning feedback exchange into a group activity takes some of the pressure off individuals.

Weekly feedback sessions, hosted by managers, are focused, collaborative conversations about recent successes, obstacles, and ideas. They provide opportunities for employees and managers to give and request feedback.

Honesty is important for these sessions to be productive. But to avoid starting conflicts or crushing morale, you’ll need guidelines that keep the discussion respectful and constructive.

2. Set Up a Continuous Improvement Board

A continuous improvement board is a great way to kickstart an interactive feedback culture. If your team is office-based, place a bulletin board somewhere visible and have a pack of sticky notes nearby. All team members can use them to:

  • Vote on strategies for continuous improvement put forth by management
  • Create mind maps to solve problems collaboratively
  • Leave messages for colleagues, from suggestions to a simple “good job”

A virtual whiteboard or Slack channel works just as well for remote teams.

3. Engage Remote Employees

Many remote employees reportedly feel excluded by colleagues and detached from company goals and values. So it’s essential to bring your remote employees into the continuous feedback loop.

Using employee feedback software like nGAGE is an easy way to give your remote teams a stake in the company’s growth. Peer-to-peer feedback ensures that the team is collaborating outside of projects, too.

4. Look At the Data Behind the Data

Quantitative results only tell you so much. The unspoken implications behind them are just as important to consider.

You can use them to see whether your feedback strategy is having the intended effect.

If feedback surveys aren’t getting the expected number of responses, ask employees how the process could be more engaging. If one-on-ones for a particular team don’t yield positive results, check in with them about their manager’s communication.

5. Put the Feedback into Practice

Continuous feedback loops are doomed to fail if no one takes affirmative action to meet goals and make changes. It’s built into the loop – there’s no progress if nothing has changed.

Leadership should be the first to model putting feedback into action. Set deadlines for deciding which employee feedback to implement and be transparent about them. When you’ve come to a consensus, let employees know:

  • What you’ve settled on
  • What the changes will look like
  • How long they’ll take to set up
  • Why other suggestions didn’t make the cut

Need Help Ensuring Effective Continuous Feedback?

Though it’s a simple system, a continuous feedback loop takes a lot of work to run smoothly. With so many moving parts, it can be difficult to make sure everyone’s participating and that no feedback gets lost along the way.

An employee feedback software like nGAGE takes work off your plate and keeps everyone accountable. With nGAGE, your company can:

  • Keep track of all feedback and who it’s given to, making it easier to spot recurring concerns and recent improvements.
  • Request feedback from employees and managers at any time with just the click of a button.
  • Give feedback anonymously, without fear of bias or retribution from superiors.

Request a demo now to see how nGAGE can streamline your continuous feedback loop.

5 Employee Engagement Strategies You Need NOW

Posted on by Maha Yaser

Though half of 2024 has passed, it’s never late to hunt for employee engagement strategies. After all, your organization needs these to motivate the workforce and strengthen its commitment to the business.

What is Employee Engagement and Why is it Important?

Employee engagement is an important metric for measuring how invested employees are in their work and the company as a whole. It also refers to the degree they’re motivated and passionate about their work, ensuring their commitment to contributing positively to the company.

However, employee engagement isn’t synonymous with employee satisfaction. Satisfied employees may not be willing to go the extra mile for their companies. Moreover, they’re more likely to coast through work rather than put their all into their productivity.

Similarly, the concept isn’t the same as employee happiness. Happiness is a short-term measurement that changes rapidly. Therefore, it doesn’t indicate how invested employees are in the company.

The Importance of Employee Engagement

Leveraging employee engagement ideas can positively impact the success of your business. Here are some ways this is possible.

  • Increased Productivity – Engaged employees are more motivated and efficient in their tasks. In fact, Gallup reports an 18% rise in productivity where employee engagement strategies are a priority.
  • Higher Retention Rates – Since they feel valued, employees have a more positive attitude towards work. As a result, they’re less likely to leave the company.
  • Better Customer Satisfaction – Your engaged workforce is more likely to go above and beyond for your success. It’s also likely to contribute new ideas and improvements. So, expect better service and, ultimately, higher customer satisfaction.
  • Reduced Absenteeism – Gallup reports an 81% difference in absenteeism between engaged and non-engaged workplaces. That’s because engaged employees tend to take fewer sick days, and are more consistent in their attendance. One possible reason for this is that they typically experience less stress and better overall health.
  • Increased Profitability – Using employee engagement strategies leads to higher profitability due to increased productivity and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, a fall in employee engagement can reduce profitability by 54%.

How to Increase Employee Engagement – 5 Effective Strategies

After that quick recap of the basics, it’s time to explore five interesting employee engagement strategies you can use.

1) Introduce Autonomy in the Workplace

Workplace autonomy is the degree of independence and freedom employees have in how they perform their job tasks. It empowers employees to make decisions, manage their own work, and determine the best ways to accomplish their responsibilities.

What further makes autonomy one of the winning employee engagement strategies you can embrace is the freedom it offers. Employees can approach problems and tasks in innovative ways, without being strictly bound by rigid procedures.

You also won’t compromise on accountability since workers are responsible for outcomes. This, in turn, increases their sense of ownership and motivation.

2) Get Managers on Board to Drive Engagement

Managers have a large impact on employee engagement. According to a Predictive Index survey, 94% of respondents with great managers reported more passion and energy for work. On the other hand, only 59% reported the same despite bad bosses.

To ensure your managers contribute towards your employee engagement goals, consider –

  • Strengthening your bonds with them by being transparent and open
  • Listening actively and empathetically to your managers
  • Empowering them by delegating responsibilities and providing them with autonomy
  • Recognizing their achievements and appreciating them regularly

3) Get Feedback Directly from Employees

Traditionally, surveys have been used to assess the level of employee engagement within an organization. With their results in hand, you can identify your priorities and tweak your employee engagement strategies.

However, considering the amount of time surveys take, you may start noticing a few disgruntled workers already. That’s why feedback apps are a great alternative.

Not only do they allow employees to highlight issues then and there, but also the organization gets to address them swiftly. This makes your workforce feel heard while you get to nip issues before they escalate and spread.

4) Set Up Mentorship Programs and Growth Plans

Investing in your workforce’s career growth is one of the best employee engagement strategies for many reasons –

  • Growth plans and mentorship programs require a lot of interactions and communication. This enables employees to connect and even bond with one another.
  • Such programs further cultivate trust between employees. This can make it easier for mentees to confide in their mentors, even about personal struggles.
  • As employees feel valued and invested in, their engagement and satisfaction levels increase. This, along with the specialized expertise your career development initiatives offer, boosts overall productivity and employee retention rates.

If you wish to pull this off right, consider gamifying your growth initiatives. Gamification in the workplace has proven to be highly effective in organizations worldwide. And you can easily incorporate it into your growth and career development programs.

5) Shift the Focus to Workforce Wellbeing

Employee wellbeing is ensuring the physical, mental, emotional, social, and financial health of members of your workforce. And it’s one aspect most workers won’t compromise on.

According to Deloitte, 84% of employees prioritized improving their wellbeing in 2023. Moreover, 74% have ranked this above advancing their career.

The same study even uncovered that 60% of employees would consider quitting if they could have better support for their wellbeing. The same was voiced by 64% of managers and 75% of C-level executives.

In addition to improving retention, ensuring employee wellbeing creates a bond between the workforce and the organization. Companies including it in their employee engagement strategies also report higher performance and healthier workplaces.

If you wish to begin working on this aspect, here are some tips to set you in the right direction –

  • Devise a wellbeing strategy to complement your employee engagement strategies. You may also want to customize this according to employees as no two people are alike.
  • Instill employee wellbeing in leaders. Your managers’ attitude has a large impact on individuals’ mental health. So, you may want to incentivize leaders to grow committed to this aspect.
  • Foster a culture that encourages people to grow without fearing judgement or discrimination.
  • Give your people access to wellness tools or webinars so they can address the different aspects of wellness on their own.

Want to Drive Engagement Quicker?

Automate, automate, AUTOMATE. If you truly wish to get the most from the above employee engagement strategies, that too quickly, you need to consider automation.

Before you go hunting for other employee engagement tools, why not check out what nGAGE has to offer? Request a demo and discover yourself how the app can fuel your employee engagement activity.