Worst feedback is driving high performers at work to quit, finds study

the survey also found that there are gendered biases in what kind of feedback is delivered to men, women, and nonbinary employees. (Representational image)

High-performers at workplaces, especially women, are not getting quality feedback from their bosses and it could be driving them to quit, a new study by Textio -- an AI-powered writing platform for HR teams that analysed more than 23,000 performance reviews across 250 US workplaces -- has found.

It clarified that quality of feedback does not mean positive or negative reviews; it means feedback with clear examples of the employee’s contributions and clear suggestions for improvement and how to make progress on professional goals, like getting a promotion, CNBC Make It reported.

On the other hand, low-quality feedback can be described as reviews that are not specific, relevant or actionable. “It could be the feedback is about somebody’s personality rather than their work, or it could be exaggerated and not super realistic,” Kieran Snyder, co-founder and chief scientist emeritus at Textio, told the publication.

When people get low-quality feedback -- even when it’s positive -- they’re 63 percent more likely to quit within the next 12 months, according to a separate 2023 Textio survey.

That could mean trouble for teams with star employees. “As people are providing feedback for these high performers, they feel the need to provide more, but it is more often surface-level,” Snyder told CNBC Make It.

Meanwhile, the survey also found that there are gendered biases in what kind of feedback is delivered to men, women, and nonbinary employees.

Women are more likely than men to be given feedback based on personality traits or “how they make people feel,” Snyder said, while men’s performance reviews spend more time praising them for being ambitious and confident. The survey stated that even the highest-performing women are subject to this “personality tax”.

These comments may be positive on the surface level, Snyder said, but fail to measure women’s performance on the work they actually accomplish. “This feedback is focused on personality rather than somebody’s real work deliverables," she added.