Managers 'scared of giving negative feedback'

Created on 06/10/2009 at 12:14:11

Written by James Pepper

New research has found that employees think that their managers are not very effective when it comes to giving negative feedback.

Andy Clare, partner at Shine Feedback, which carried out the research, said that over the last five years the company has been analysing what employees think are their managers' strengths and where they are less effective.

According to Shine Feedback – a company with 14 years experience in employee research - managers are not finding the time to sit down and talk with individual employees about their performance.

Following the perennial study, Mr Clare said: "About four or five years ago what was emerging was people saying, 'In terms of strengths, my manager is very good at setting my objectives and very good at making sure that we know that our customers are important'."

However, he added that employees believe that what managers are less good at is coaching them and helping them develop skills.

Mr Clare added that research showed managers were not particularly good at having conversations with people when their performance was not good enough.