through email is good, but never use it as a substitute for doing it in person.
Use staff meetings.
Make it a regular part of your agenda to talk about what is going well and how you are going to recognize those things. Hold others account‐ able for giving regular, specific, posi‐ tive feedback to employees.
Your managers may need some training and follow‐up coaching to develop the skill. Correcting poor performance comes much more naturally than giving positive feed‐ back for most people.
Don't assume.
Simply because you think you give a lot of positive feedback to em‐ ployees does not mean it is being heard by the employees. Do some regular surveys of employees to
see what their perceptions are about positive feedback in the workplace.
Practice Managing By Wandering Around (M.B.W.A.) Get out of your office each week and walk around your operation looking for good things that are happening. They are certainly hap‐ pening, or your company would not succeed. It is up to you to make M.B.W.A. a regular and consistent part of your daily routine.
In summary, giving positive feedback is one of the most powerful tools you have in your manager's toolkit. It can make a huge difference in productiv‐ ity, quality, customer service, team‐ work, and even employee turnover. You like to get a pat on the back now and then, right? Your employees are no different; they want you to pay more attention to what's going right. E
We all know that positive feedback is one of the tools managers have to help motivate their employees, yet when I talk to employees at all levels, the thing I hear most often is "I don't get enough feedback from my boss, and when I do it's negative."
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