Dive Brief:
- A new Clutch survey shows that 42% of employees in small business don’t receive consistent feedback from their managers or the company. The treatment is leaving them feeling unfulfilled on the job, reports the 2016 HR Employee Feedback Survey. By contrast, only 18% of employees who do receive regular feedback felt unfulfilled.
- Researchers found that company size determined whether employees received feedback. They divided the survey into enterprises, companies with 5,000 or more employees, and small businesses, those with 1 to 50 workers. Enterprises gave employees more feedback than small businesses. Only 15% of workers in large companies said they receive no feedback.
- Both large and small companies used different types of feedback in the survey. The most common was verbal, which was used by 57% of enterprises and 35% of small businesses. Although formal, scheduled feedback is considered outmoded, just 37% of big companies and 16% of small businesses use today’s less formal, more spontaneous feedback.
Dive Insight:
Researchers believe enterprise managers were more likely to give employees feedback because they have more structured systems and more resources to evaluate employees effectively. Big companies also use sophisticated tools like Key Performance Indicators to give feedback and stress role distinctions, better HR practices and compliance with workplace laws.
Not only is feedback rarely given — the study found that in small businesses, managers were less likely to do high-quality evaluations. Debate has erupted about how exactly companies should perform feedback, exemplified in Facebook recently saying they opted to keep more traditional performance evaluations. But as the annual performance review begins to be questioned, more companies need to consider the value of their feedback programs and make adjustments based on their own culture and needs.