This is my first post, although I've been reading this discussion board for a few months...very informative!

I am the training manager for a 130 employee sales department. My challenge recently is with giving constructive feedback to the managers of the employees in my training programs. I'm not confident that every member of the management team will use my feedback as it's intended, for coaching purposes. My concern is that managers will potentially use the feedback I give them to reprimand or "build a case against" employees.

My biggest fear is that if this happens, I'll be seen as a "tattler" and employees will lose trust in me. At the same time, I understand that managers need to be informed of their employees' performance, especially if there is a specific need for coaching, more training, etc.

Has anyone been in this situation? If so, what steps have you taken to help minimize the issue so that a healthy learning environment can flourish? How do you give feedback? In writing? 1:1 discussion? What are your recommendations?

Thanks!

Is the feedback specifically related to something the employee is (or is not) doing in one of your classes? If so, the feedback should go directly from you to the employee.

It also sounds like these managers need some leadership coaching. No manager worth his/her position should be "building a case against employees". Have these managers demonstrated that type of behavior before -- I mean have they demonstrated that they are clueless about constructive feedback and helping employees improve?

Now for the really difficult, direct question... why is being seen as a tattler your biggest fear? If you provide expectations up front and provide direct, objective, constructive feedback, and you establish a good rapport with your trainees, there is no reason they should see you as a tattler. They will see you as a tattler only if you actually ARE tattling -- if you're not talking to them directly as the adults that they are, but you instead run to their managers and hope that the managers interpret your feedback correctly.

slstrnr; I would worry about taking observations from training and providing them to supervision. Training needs to be a non-threatening environment, where students can drop their guards and open up to the ideas being presented. Poor (job related) performance in the classroom may well be a function of the quality of the training or instruction, the proficiency of the instructor, how well the student was prepared before class, etc. Not that yours is, those are just some possibilities. I agree with Laura, that if this poor performance is observed, a direct conversation with the student is correct, for if you do go to supervision and the word gets around that attending training has negative consequences, be prepared for your enrollment and/or participation of enrolled students to take a screaming nose dive. I have worked with customers who specifically remove training performance (grades on test for instance) from an employee's annual performance evaluation. They instead focus on job performance. In other words, it's not necessarily a bad thing to make mistakes in training as long as the learning objectives are satisfied, transfer of knowledge has occured, and job performance improves.

In your position, I would ask that management conduct a near-term and more extended evaluation of the student's abilities as they pertain to the training topic(s) once they return to their actual job. If there are performance issues that training missed or didn't correct (or worse: taught wrong), supervision will pick up on it very quickly. As supervisors, that's their job. Let them do it. Yours is one of providing opportunity.

I hope this helps...

Regards,

Del Laughery
President, Instructional Dynamics

Hi slstrnr,

I have ocassionally been asked for feedback on a trainee from their manager, but usually when the employee is new. Generally it's to get a sense of how well they're picking up the new information. I never say anything negative about how new employees are doing, since it's too early to tell anything. Of course, if they are excelling, I will tell the manager that.

On very rare ocassions, I have felt a manager prodding me for information on an employee who they might not be totally satisfied with. I absolutely never get involved in judging the performance of their employees. If there's a test for the class they are attending, I let those results speak for themselves. Otherwise I stay out of it.

As the others have said, if the employee is not being a good student, I address it with them directly. One of the things I like about not being a manager is that I don't have to get involved in those issues. It's a sticky situation that I like avoiding.

Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to give me your ideas.

The theme I identified in your replies is that I should be giving feedback directly to employees and not to their managers. I would prefer to handle most situations this way, and I do give direct feedback and generally have very good relationships with employees. I don't go to managers with complaints about employees that I expect them to solve for me. I am expected to give regular feedback to managers on the progress of their employees. This is what they want and this is what my boss expects. As for the managers needing leaderhip coaching, that is an understatement, and therein lies the problem. I'm trying to find the balance that will work in this environment so I can give honest feedback without the fear that it will be used in a way that undermines the trust that employees have in me.