Make Feedback the Beginning of the Journey
The feedback is complete, and the conversation with the employee has taken place. What comes next?
For HR, this is where an important opportunity begins: making sure the insights gathered don’t simply remain insights.
The strengths, aspirations, and development opportunities identified through Manager Feedback reviews can help shape the conversation about what comes next in the employee’s professional journey.
The goal isn’t to create a complex plan for every insight. Instead, help the manager and employee choose a few meaningful priorities and determine how to move them forward.
Help Employees Focus on What Matters Most
Trying to develop everything at once isn’t realistic. Instead, encourage managers and employees to focus on one or two priorities.
The conversation can explore:
strengths to put to greater use
competencies the employee would like to develop
professional aspirations and interests
needs related to their current role
opportunities for future growth
HR can support this process by providing the right resources, tools, and development opportunities to help turn reflection into action.
Think Beyond Training
Professional development doesn’t necessarily mean training.
Once priorities have been identified, encourage managers and employees to consider the experiences that could genuinely support progress.
For example:
participate in a new project
take a training course
learn from a colleague or mentor
practise a competency in a new context
receive coaching or guidance
gradually take on new responsibilities
schedule regular check-ins with the manager
A simple, well-chosen action that fits naturally into everyday work can sometimes have more impact than an ambitious development plan.
Create Continuity in Professional Development
A professional development plan doesn’t have to remain fix until the next annual review.
Self-Assessments, 360 Feedback, and future Manager Feedback reviews provide new opportunities to revisit priorities, recognize progress, and adjust the direction along the way.
For HR, these different perspectives can support an approach where professional development becomes an ongoing conversation embedded in the employee experience.
Tip: A development plan created with the employee is more likely to feel meaningful to them. Encouraging employees to share their aspirations, choose their priorities, and consider which actions would be most useful gives them an active role in their own development.
Create the Right Conditions for Action
HR’s role isn’t to determine every employee’s development path. It’s to give managers and employees the right tools and reference points to build that path together.
Feedback can then become the beginning of a new project, a learning opportunity, a career conversation, or simply a chance to put an existing strength to greater use.
Explore Self-Assessments and 360 Feedbacks to develop continuous growth.