By Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ

Note to managers: Employees need a lot more feedback about their performance. According to a new study by Leadership IQ, 51% of employees don’t know whether their performance is where it should be. That’s pretty shocking, so I’ll say it again: We asked 3,611 workers across 291 companies to respond to a series of survey questions, including the question “I know whether my job performance is where it should be.” The results? 51% Disagreed while only 21% Agreed (27% were in the middle).
How is it possible that half of employees don’t know whether their performance is where it should be? Well, the other questions in our study provide some clues.

We asked employees about the amount of interaction they have with their boss, and a whopping 66% of employees said that they have too little interaction with their boss. Only 18% said they have just the right amount and even fewer (16%) said they have too much interaction with their boss.

Alright, so you might be tempted to think that you should walk the hallways giving your employees pats on the back to make them feel better. But not so fast. This study revealed that employees don’t just want warm-and-fuzzy interactions. While 67% of employees say they get too little positive feedback, 51% also say they get too little constructive criticism from their boss. That’s right: Employees are desperate for information about their performance—good, bad or otherwise.

Employees want to know how to improve and grow; they want to perform their best. Ultimately, employees know that the economic stakes are high, competition is intensifying, and that jobs (and even companies) are at risk. Smart employees know that as their performance improves, so too does their future (including bonuses, job security, choice assignments, and more). And thus they want lots of information about how to optimize their performance.

While we’ve been talking about the Quantity of feedback that employees get, this study also revealed just how poor the Quality of feedback can be. Employees not only said that they’re not getting enough feedback, they also said that the feedback they do get isn’t terribly effective. In our study, 53% of employees said that when their boss does praise excellent performance, the feedback does not provide enough useful information to help them repeat it. And 65% of employees say that when their boss criticizes poor performance, they don’t provide enough useful information to help employees correct the issue.

As we outline in our upcoming book “Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give It Their All and They’ll Give You Even More,” employees need information about their performance that is Timely, Specific and Candid (i.e. they need a little TSC). This means employees need real-time feedback that catches issues before they balloon and opportunities before they get missed. They need feedback that tells them exactly what to do more and less of, and they need that information truthfully.

Too many leaders delay feedback because they’re trying to figure out how to spin it, sugarcoat it, or bury it. For example, may managers try to squeeze a negative performance critique or correction between layers of positive reinforcement. In our upcoming book, we call this the Compliment Sandwich, and it doesn’t work. It’s like trying to tell your kid to get off drugs while praising him or her for mowing the lawn last Saturday. It’s a crazy mixed message that gets zero results.

A professional athlete can get dozens of bits of feedback during a practice or game. A student gets constant feedback throughout the day. But it’s not uncommon for a typical employee to go months without any meaningful feedback about their performance. We say we need our employees to perform at higher levels than ever before to help turn the economy around, but how are they supposed to perform when they’re not getting nearly enough feedback about what they’re doing right (which needs to be repeated) and wrong (which needs to be eliminated)?

One final note: Not only do employees need lots of great feedback to improve their performance, they also need it to stay engaged in their jobs. According to our study, employees who said they didn’t get enough feedback were 43% less likely to recommend their company to others as a great organization to work for.