Kudos to Garry Kranz at Workforce Management for citing employee engagement research in making the case that business leaders should satisfy workers by giving them feedback, even it it's negative.

As Kranz writes, the temptation to focus only on the positive in performance evaluations is strong.  It's likely a lot stronger now because the economy has forced many leaders to cut staff, as well as hours and/or pay for employees who remain.  This has resulted in fewer than half of them now being satisfied with their jobs – which makes them a lot more inclined to leave given the opportunity, even in a down economy.

Thus, we see more positive performance reviews than might be justified in more stable times.

But the takeaway from Kranz's article is that employees don't want their feedback sugarcoated; they crave honesty from their managers and leaders.  In other words, they want what you should be using as a building block to create (or sustain) a productive workplace anyway: Trust, Respect & Fairness.

The bottom line is that, even in a worst case scenario where the feedback of your employee survey is overwhelmingly negative, as I wrote last month, there's value in even this outcome because you will know the areas of your workplace culture that must be improved.  Once you're at this stage, you can turn to us for expert advice on specific people practices to move forward, over the ideal timeframe – in other words, an action plan.

Related: If fear cripples leaders and managers, it can be really destructive for the rest of your workforce.  This Ask An Expert column provides practical tips on removing fear as a barrier to productivity.

Image credit: Photobucket/freakyjohn101