It’s important throughout the placement journey to provide participants with regular feedback. It’s so much more valuable than you may think, it assists with their learning, development and overall confidence both professionally and personally.

It’s incredibly important to provide constructive feedback if you find your participant is lacking motivation, producing low-quality work or is unable to work well with their colleagues. Equally, it’s just as important to provide positive feedback — if your participant is performing well or tackling tasks at a high level, positive reinforcement is crucial to a participant’s confidence and enjoyment of the role.

A study by PwC showed that 92% of employees believe constructive feedback delivered in the appropriate way would be extremely beneficial.

So, what’s the right approach for providing feedback? How often should you meet with your participant and how do you deliver feedback in a constructive way?

Make it a pre-scheduled, regular occurrence

As soon as your participant starts their placement, take them through the placement experience and at what intervals during that journey they can expect feedback and discussion sessions. Set up a method that works for you and your participant — it may be weekly, fortnight or monthly. We suggest regular short catchups, with time for longer, more in-depth, learning-based feedback sessions. This allows for regular touchpoints so performance can be monitored and managed; likewise, your participant can let you know of anything they are struggling with.

Make it a two-way street

Feedback sessions should be a conversation. This will make the experience feel safer and the participant is more likely to open up if they feel as though they two have a say in their experience. An open dialogue can bring to light any challenges or issues a participant is facing, before they become actual problems, and provides you with an opportunity to help them along the way.

The good, not just the bad and the ugly

We are all so busy and stretched that we often neglect to provide our teams with positive feedback, as well as constructive feedback. A little praise can go a long way to confirming to a participant that what they are doing is correct and as you wanted. Knowing this means they can crack on with the tasks without second guessing (and in turn wasting time).