Some people have a bad taste in their mouth about feedback. There's a fine line between constructive feedback and negative criticism. The difference is pinpointing. Negative criticism occurs when you don't describe the situation factually or specifically enough so that the person can make changes and meet expectations.

Constructive feedback is good for the employee, or anyone you are giving it to, and it's good for you. Like other skills, it improves with practice.

Constructive feedback : Why do it?
For problems that need to be resolved and situations that need to be improved.

When do you do it?
As quickly as possible.

Who does it?
Whoever is experiencing a problem.

Who is it for?
It's for the person or the employee who needs to improve.

Constructive feedback. The questions is, how do you do it? Well, there are three steps.

First, you have to plan ahead.

Second, you have to behave assertively.

Third, it must be done privately with the employee.

You need to focus on the behavior, and to do that you use a technique called pinpointing. Pinpointing is very critical. Without it, you'll fail. Pinpointing is describing the specific, factual behavior you want. Maybe a couple of examples would be helpful:

You're talking to the employee and you say "A few days ago you took more than the time allocated for the customary 60 minutes for lunch and yesterday you left 30 minutes before the end of working timings yesterday."

Another example, "You submitted the last three months' worth of reports much beyond the schedule and that too it was incomplete, because it was without the financial section."

Or,

"At yesterday's team meeting, you sighed heavily and loudly, looked at your watch and closed your notepad five minutes before the meeting
chairman finished speaking."

With pinpointing, you go from the general to the specific. Look at the three examples.

In the first one, the generality could be that the employee is not dependable.

Pinpoint, listing the behaviors specifically: "Taking more time for lunch and to have left 30 minutes early."

In the second example, this could be an employee you felt did sloppy work, but saying that doesn't give the employee the information they need to improve their behavior. Pinpoint: "The report was not complete."

In the third example, most of us would think the employee had a bad attitude. By pinpointing, you list the specific behavior, looking at the watch and closing the notepad. Pinpointing begins the constructive feedback by identifying problems, not causing defensiveness with opinions and generalities.

Gathering information is the next step. Followed by agreeing on what the problem is and the action needed to solve the problem.

Follow these steps to giving constructive feedback and you'll get less defensive employees who are willing and able to meet expectations.