How to give positive feedback

We often think we are giving people praise however the reality is it is often sporadic and unspecific. We also often hold back from giving praise for fear of people getting a big head or becoming complacent or simply because we think they are just doing their job.

This is despite the fact that surveys and research have shown time and time again that it pays to let employees know that you’re paying attention to what they do and that you really do appreciate their efforts.

We get in the habit of only letting people know how they can improve as we have an innate ability to pick up and focus on what is wrong in a situation.

Taking a few moments to focus on spotting what someone is doing well and simply express your appreciation can have a powerful impact on an employees’ self-esteem, which in turn will improve their attitude toward work.

To maximize the impact make sure you:

The three things I’ve learnt about relieving stress

Sometimes life throws you a few curve balls that knock your routine and plans completely out. Suddenly you find yourself running around like a headless chicken just to find out you are still behind and the backlog of things to do just kept getting bigger.

We all face these challenges every now and again but when you find yourself overstretched give these three things a try:

Fend off a winter of discontent!

This is the time of year when people make and take decisions about their future, often deciding they need to change jobs or get more out of their current one. At the same time it’s when management teams look to set company performance goals and individual targets for the year ahead.

This means it’s more important than ever to make time to evaluate how you and your team are doing, decide what your goals and aims really are and how they fit with your key values. It is also important to set some time dated milestones, to give the feeling of early momentum in the coming year.

 Unfortunately if people are thinking of leaving, conventional appraisals often aren’t able to help them develop or make the job more rewarding. So what can organisations do to keep the people that are thinking of continuing 2010 without them?