Keke Kaikhosroshvili
Keke is Zavvy's expert in learning experience. On our blog, she shares experience and insights based on her studies in learning design and experiences made with our customers.
Employee feedback can open the doors for a lot of misunderstanding if you don't clarify how it works for your staff.
Take the experience of Mark Scott, VP of corporate communications at eVestment. He fought hard to secure a 5% raise for an outstanding, irreplaceable employee during a tough financial year when her teammates received a maximum 2% raise.
Unfortunately, the employee had expected a 15 to 20% raise based on merit and was so disappointed by the news that she cried during her appraisal.
This scenario isn't unusual, with 34% of millennials admitting in an Adobe survey that they've wept during a performance review.
Leaders can avoid this scenario by clarifying expectations related to the review itself.
So, start with outlining whether you're holding a developmental or evaluative performance appraisal. And how each appraisal type ties to compensation, promotions, or career growth (if at all).
Let's dig into the key differences between the two, including the purpose behind each.
Ultimately, you will gain a clear image of which type is the best for your organization. Spoiler alert: we recommend using both.
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Administrative feedback (also known as evaluative feedback) is reflective. Your employees are probably familiar with them as the traditional annual performance review.
HR teams use these as a vehicle to measure how an employee has performed during the past review period. They can then make data-driven choices on base pay, bonus structures, or promotional opportunities.
Evaluative reviews typically involve downward feedback from a manager to a direct report.
In comparison, modern-day appraisals are moving toward 360-degree reviews instead—these incorporate multi-directional feedback from peers, managers, direct reports, and more during this process.
"The Handbook of Strategic Feedback" by Church et al. discusses the strategic role of 360-degree feedback for evaluative purposes.
"A 360 feedback system is likely to be considered strategic if it is designed to serve one or more of the following areas:
CEO Matthew Ramirez explains how they use this feedback style at Rephrasely:
"Evaluative feedback is about making sure an employee is performing well enough and meeting the company's standards. I find it helpful to keep it to two parts: what the employee did well and what they could do better.
By keeping the feedback to a minimum and focusing on the positives as much as possible, it makes it easier for the employee to take on board the feedback and use it to their advantage."
A key aspect of this evaluative feedback style is to use metrics to assess past performance and standardize these across all employees—for both fairness and relevance. Use the same multisource feedback process to measure manager effectiveness and consistency across departments.
In The Power of Feedback: Giving, Seeking, and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement, Manuel London explains:
"Managers are evaluated in the same way on the same set of performance elements for the same purpose. You can compare average scores obtained from others and from scores you received in the past.
Of course, you need to interpret your results and judge their value. Did raters within a group (e.g., all subordinates) disagree, and by how much?"
But how do we measure evaluative feedback?
Evaluative performance questions focus on whether employees have achieved the targets set in their previous review cycle.
Depending on the outcome of your evaluative feedback session, some potential action items could include:
➡️ Short on inspiration? Check out these 17 proven methods to improve employee performance.
Developmental feedback is future-facing and far less formal than the traditional performance review, so it's less nail-biting for your employees. Instead, it draws on the foundations of an employee's unique skills and experience. Then, it uses this as a solid base from which to grow.
These developmental-focused conversations rely on continuous feedback to achieve long-term career success. And when you provide this space to grow, both the employee and the company benefit.
Need proof? A meta-analysis of 105 studies on leadership style found that empowering employees resulted in higher engagement metrics and more creative output.
Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager at Financer, explains his approach:
"For developmental feedback, I try to focus on the positives and give constructive criticism in a way that centers around potential opportunities for growth. I strive to be objective in my delivery style—with a focus on results that can inform future plans or decisions. Whenever possible, I like to use anecdotal stories as this helps to humanize the conversation and add context."
As developmental conversations aren't necessarily involved in administrative decisions, the framework to measure or track this feedback form is more fluid.
The focus is on employee accountability, as each individual sets and measures their development under the guidance of their manager or mentor.
Here are some guidelines to follow:
By implementing these strategies, you can create and nurture a culture of trust and collaboration, helping to foster open conversations and continuous employee growth.
➡️ Check out some developmental goals examples to set your employees up for success.
Multi-directional evaluative reports that take peer feedback into account. But developmental reviews only require question-and-answer input from employees and their managers or mentors.
Some example questions include:
Consider the following action items as examples of how to power forward following a review:
➡️ Alternatively, check out these six employee development methods to transform development conversations into actionable growth.
Still confused about evaluative vs. developmental feedback?
Michael Alexis breaks down how he approaches both in his role as CEO at teambuilding.com:"Developmental feedback is typically more focused on the process of learning, while evaluative feedback is more focused on the product of learning.
For developmental feedback, I try to provide a lot of positive reinforcement and ask questions to help the employee reflect on their own learning. For evaluative feedback, I am more likely to give specific feedback about what the employee did well or poorly and offer suggestions. More than anything, I treat each conversation like a dialogue and a learning opportunity rather than a lecture."
Here's a handy table to help you develop your strategy.
You can incorporate the evaluative and developmental review types into different areas of performance management.
You can use evaluative feedback for:
You can use development feedback for:
Where evaluative feedback tends to look backward to drive future decisions, development feedback propels an employee into the future by continuously building on their existing strengths.
🚨 But as two sides of the same coin, evaluative and developmental feedback can and should co-exist.
It's only natural that if an employee focuses on developing their skills and knowledge, then performance improvements will follow suit.
A study by Dominick et al. entitled The Effects of Peer Feedback on Team Member Behavior, revealed that a combination of evaluative and developmental feedback is particularly beneficial for overall team performance.
The study looked at three linked hypotheses:
The results showed that when participants knew they would not receive developmental feedback, it would "diminish [their] motivation to set goals or regulate their behavior over time."
Similarly, participants who received feedback began to expect it after completing their second round of tasks.
The study concludes with the expectation of "even greater changes in behavior when information obtained through peer feedback instruments is combined with additional interventions such as the establishment of specific performance goals or by linking improvements to pay and other rewards."
Remember how important it is to set employee expectations about the review process?
The solution is to use 360 feedback to embrace both developmental and administrative (evaluative) feedback strategically.
When you invite positive and constructive feedback from a variety of peers, managers, direct reports, adjacent team members, business partners, customers, and more, you have a powerful engine to drive your administrative decision-making and inspire growth plans.
Use a combination approach to cover:
The key is to be open to multiple perspectives and use your 360 degree data collected to drive meaningful change.
Tip: Do this by tracking progress, determining how employees compare to their organization counterparts and developing action plans.
Zavvy offers a suite of tools to manage developmental and evaluative feedback.
Book a demo of our Zavvy feedback suite today and start driving a cycle of continuous growth.
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Employee feedback can open the doors for a lot of misunderstanding if you don't clarify how it works for your staff.
Take the experience of Mark Scott, VP of corporate communications at eVestment. He fought hard to secure a 5% raise for an outstanding, irreplaceable employee during a tough financial year when her teammates received a maximum 2% raise.
Unfortunately, the employee had expected a 15 to 20% raise based on merit and was so disappointed by the news that she cried during her appraisal.
This scenario isn't unusual, with 34% of millennials admitting in an Adobe survey that they've wept during a performance review.
Leaders can avoid this scenario by clarifying expectations related to the review itself.
So, start with outlining whether you're holding a developmental or evaluative performance appraisal. And how each appraisal type ties to compensation, promotions, or career growth (if at all).
Let's dig into the key differences between the two, including the purpose behind each.
Ultimately, you will gain a clear image of which type is the best for your organization. Spoiler alert: we recommend using both.
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