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How do you give negative feedback?


Mainly Mattias

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Yeah, I agree with all that you guys have said. I like the pro-active approach, ilduce, but it's too much hand-holding... on my part and in principle. Employers want employees with the common sense to make smart decisions on their own or know when to bring it to a superior. That common sense comes with experience, but even so, they need the ability to roll with the punches and adapt quickly. I see it in OCD types of employees and try to encourage them into a career more in line with how they like to work: predictive, exact, low variables, concrete parameters.

Some background: I used to work in industry and then moved into teaching. I try and get students up to being employable and try to tell them when I know that they're going to have employment issues. I've tried the soft and the hard approach. Neither seem to stick with the really tough cases. I then get emails after they're all done with school saying they've been fired again and they don't know why.. My coworkers don't bother anymore and just leave them to fall as they will.

This happens more and more because kids grow up thinking they're entitled to a job just because they possess a diploma or even degree, so they get out in the real world, reality sinks in, and they can't handle it.

Leaving them to figure things out for themselves is a good idea, or send them back to the people that helped create this idea that they're entitled to success merely for existing.

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Yeah, I agree with all that you guys have said. I like the pro-active approach, ilduce, but it's too much hand-holding... on my part and in principle. Employers want employees with the common sense to make smart decisions on their own or know when to bring it to a superior. That common sense comes with experience, but even so, they need the ability to roll with the punches and adapt quickly. I see it in OCD types of employees and try to encourage them into a career more in line with how they like to work: predictive, exact, low variables, concrete parameters.

Some background: I used to work in industry and then moved into teaching. I try and get students up to being employable and try to tell them when I know that they're going to have employment issues. I've tried the soft and the hard approach. Neither seem to stick with the really tough cases. I then get emails after they're all done with school saying they've been fired again and they don't know why.. My coworkers don't bother anymore and just leave them to fall as they will.

Emails won't help them. They need to be sent to China, work 10 hours a day for 5 bucks. Then they'll know how good they have it here.

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What I love, is seeing kids go into the business world today trying to pedantically correct people on utterly minor, irrelevant things, thinking their potential bosses are their buddies. I've seen more than a handful of pre-25 year old guys smacked down from our VP alone. I say guys because I've never seen it happen to a woman yet, usually it's guys who are socially inexperienced yet overconfident.

It definitely takes experience to understand what is important and what is meaningless.

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I wanted to steer people away from making mistakes. The majority of the minds are focused only on grades though and not their employability.. or even the suitability of their chosen path. I'm sort of wondering now though if maybe people learn best from living their lives and making those mistakes. must be how parents feel about their children.

A well, warmplate? really? :(

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If you want to steer them down a certain career path maybe start by asking if they ever considered that path and that you think they have skills that might help them to succeed in that area. For getting people to be more independent, tell them to find an answer by themselves either by looking though course materials or reseach, depending on what it is get them to run it past you. Mention that in industry you can't just keep running to someone for answers/hand holding. If someone has a bad attitude I would probably tell them to their face and say what it is exactly that is bad, emails for this one could be bad because they could misinterpret your tone. I wouldn't worry about giving BS compliments just don't attack someone and give them time to respond to the critisim so they can understand/clarify what is wrong and give them steps or things to do differently.

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Work/skill related.

Specifically, I'd like a way to address the subjective non-quantifiables: poor attitude, lack of intelligence and the requiring of too much hand-holding, etc. These are attributes that are not easily fixable and are pretty personal so aren't mentioned by bosses/HR so people try to fix other things and don't really know the real problems when they get let go.

Some things like lack of intelligence really cannot be fixed no matter how nicely you put it. Bad attitude and dependence at the workplace shouldn't be coddled though. At the same time, is it really their fault they are struggling when the employer made a mistake of hiring someone who clearly shouldn't be there?

From my experience of working with students who struggle with poor attitude in school, I generally resort to drawing on my past and using that as a parallel to tell them what not to do. If you find your professional reputation expendable and have a relevant history to draw on, I'd say go for it. It's possible to be blunt, and assertive while maintaining humility by being self deprecating.

Regardless, you sound very emotionally attached to your job of trying to make these people do well out in the real world. It's noble but there's only so much you can fix, even with proper feedback. Perhaps your coworker has taken the better path of ignoring them for his own long term well being

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good suggestions. thanks, guys.

guessing this isn't the way to go, eh?

SDAfPEvl.jpg

Sometimes that's the kick in the ass a person needs.

If the person can't heed the potential future of being a loser, just another reason to accept their position in society's gutter and be happy with their choices.

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i'll tell people straight up that their idea sucks, or they do look fat if they ask. generally people who get to know me is that i won't say things you want to hear. if you don't want to know the truth, they're smart enough not to ask me

heh heh. i like your style.

Sometimes that's the kick in the ass a person needs.

If the person can't heed the potential future of being a loser, just another reason to accept their position in society's gutter and be happy with their choices.

in an ideal world.. lol.

would rather do a straight out "you're too slow and don't work well with others. give it up!" but it'd likely turn more into a "Your accuracy and detail oriented nature is excellent. I notice that you don't really enjoy the hectic nature of having to constantly re-evaluate the changing priorities that you've been given though. You seem happiest when you have enough time and space to look at your work on your own and finish it without being rushed or interrupted; I can see that you value accuracy in your work. Have you ever thought about ___________ as a career?" (sheesh, that took me forever to draft)

It's hard to know in which direction a person is going to go. is it going to lead to the epiphany or be the trigger to mass murder and suicide?

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I'm assuming you have a fair amount of experience in the industry you're preparing your students to enter. I think the first step would be to ask WHY said student wants to pursue this career path. They could have some confusion as to what kind of skillset they need, and what the work actually involves.

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