Feedback: does the employee have a chance to put it into practice?
A conversation ends with agreement on what needs to change; work sometimes resumes without allowing any attempt to make that change. The management question is precise: how can we distinguish feedback that has not been acted on from feedback that the organisation has provided no opportunity to apply?
What the literature establishes
John Hattie and Helen Timperley (2007, Review of Educational Research) describe feedback as information that can help reduce the gap between a current state and a learning goal. Their synthesis distinguishes, among other things, information about the task, processes and self-regulation. It encourages attention to what recipients can do with the information, rather than treating its delivery as completed learning.
Transfer also depends on the work available
Timothy T. Baldwin and J. Kevin Ford (1988, Personnel Psychology) examine the conditions under which training transfers to the workplace. Their review and model give a role to the work environment, including support and opportunities to use acquired skills. Applied cautiously to managerial feedback, this framework suggests a hypothesis: a correction that has been understood may have no observable effect if there is no situation in which to try it.
The premature conclusion
A lack of change is therefore not, on its own, enough to diagnose employee resistance. Yet the opposite conclusion would also go too far: providing an opportunity to try does not guarantee that feedback is appropriate or that the recipient will take it on board. Understanding the request, having the opportunity to apply it and executing it well must be distinguished. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these studies do not demonstrate
The first synthesis concerns learning in educational settings; the second addresses training transfer rather than feedback conversations directly. They do not demonstrate that arranging an opportunity to practise after a conversation necessarily improves performance in a Basel company. In regulated activities, any attempt must also comply with procedures, authorisations and safety requirements: the appropriate opportunity may be a simulation rather than a live operation.
A practical check in Bâle
Within SHR's « L'art du feedback » programme, one possible exercise is to pair each agreed adjustment with an authorised opportunity to try it: a documentation review in pharma or life sciences, preparation for a handover in Rhine logistics, or a protocol review in an international R&D team. For one month, record the requested adjustment, the planned opportunity, whether it actually occurred and a work record that allows the change to be examined. Then calculate the proportion of agreed adjustments for which an opportunity to try actually occurred, distinguishing opportunities not provided from those provided but not used. This rate does not measure feedback effectiveness; it checks whether the organisation made application possible before attributing its absence to the employee. To go further: explore the The Art of Feedback training in Basel in the canton of Basel-Stadt, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: The Art of Feedback in Basel
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