Developmental vs. Evaluative Feedback: What’s the Best Approach for Your Organization?

Employee feedback can open the doors for a lot of misunderstanding if you don't clarify how it works for your staff. 

Take the experience of Mark Scott, VP of corporate communications at eVestment. He fought hard to secure a 5% raise for an outstanding, irreplaceable employee during a tough financial year when her teammates received a maximum 2% raise. 

Unfortunately, the employee had expected a 15 to 20% raise based on merit and was so disappointed by the news that she cried during her appraisal. 

This scenario isn't unusual, with 34% of millennials admitting in an Adobe survey that they've wept during a performance review. 

Leaders can avoid this scenario by clarifying expectations related to the review itself. 

So, start with outlining whether you're holding a developmental or evaluative performance appraisal. And how each appraisal type ties to compensation, promotions, or career growth (if at all).

Let's dig into the key differences between the two, including the purpose behind each. 

Ultimately, you will gain a clear image of which type is the best for your organization.

Spoiler alert: we recommend using both. 

📊 What is evaluative (or administrative) feedback?

Administrative feedback (also known as evaluative feedback) is reflective. Your employees are probably familiar with them as the traditional annual performance review. 

HR teams use these as a vehicle to measure how an employee has performed during the past review period. They can then make data-driven choices on base pay, bonus structures, or promotional opportunities.

Evaluative reviews typically involve downward feedback from a manager to a direct report. 

In comparison, modern-day appraisals are moving toward 360-degree reviews instead—these incorporate multi-directional feedback from peers, managers, direct reports, and more during this process. 

"The Handbook of Strategic Feedback" by Church et al. discusses the strategic role of 360-degree feedback for evaluative purposes.  

"A 360 feedback system is likely to be considered strategic if it is designed to serve one or more of the following areas: 

• Creates sustainable change in behaviors valued by an organization (those aligned with values, competencies, or strategies) 
• Creates behavior change in key leader(s) whose actions carry significant influence through decision-making and modeling
• Informs decisions integral to organization-wide talent management processes (pay, promotions, development, training, staffing) or corporate strategy (pursue growth, focus on operational efficiencies, consolidate operations) 
• Informs decisions (selection, development, retention, assignments) of key sub-populations (high potentials, succession plans.)."

CEO Matthew Ramirez explains how they use this feedback style at Rephrasely: 

"Evaluative feedback is about making sure an employee is performing well enough and meeting the company's standards. I find it helpful to keep it to two parts: what the employee did well and what they could do better. 

By keeping the feedback to a minimum and focusing on the positives as much as possible, it makes it easier for the employee to take on board the feedback and use it to their advantage."

Measuring evaluative feedback 

A key aspect of this evaluative feedback style is to use metrics to assess past performance and standardize these across all employees—for both fairness and relevance. Use the same multisource feedback process to measure manager effectiveness and consistency across departments. 

In The Power of Feedback: Giving, Seeking, and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement, Manuel London explains: 

"Managers are evaluated in the same way on the same set of performance elements for the same purpose. You can compare average scores obtained from others and from scores you received in the past. 

Of course, you need to interpret your results and judge their value. Did raters within a group (e.g., all subordinates) disagree, and by how much?"

But how do we measure evaluative feedback? 

1. Calibrate performance reviews: develop a unique set of standards to follow when appraising someone's work, so there's no variation. 
2. Create a standardized scoring system: include a numerical rating scale with performance criteria for each awarded mark. 
3. Group different roles, departments, or levels accordingly: apply your evaluative criteria at this standardized level. 
4. Check for inconsistencies across performance reviews to rule out bias. 

❓ Sample evaluative performance review questions

Evaluative performance questions focus on whether employees have achieved the targets set in their previous review cycle. 

For employees 

• Can you provide specific examples of how you met (or exceeded) your targets for this cycle? 
• What challenges (if any) have you faced in achieving these goals, and what steps have you taken to overcome them? 
• How have your contributions supported your team in their collective goals this cycle? 

For peers 

• How would you rate the employee's performance this cycle? 
• What successes have you seen from them in their performance over this period? 
• How have this person's contributions supported you with your goals this cycle? 

For managers 

• What tangible results have you seen from this employee during the review period?
• Has the employee met their specific targets this cycle? 
• Did they communicate that they required extra support to meet business goals? 

Sample evaluative review action items

Depending on the outcome of your evaluative feedback session, some potential action items could include: 

• Employee X must improve their customer service scores by 10% during the next cycle. 
• Employee Y must address their tardiness to impact the team positively. 
• Employee Z must complete the assigned training to strengthen their performance.

➡️ Short on inspiration? Check out these 17 proven methods to improve employee performance.

🌱 What is developmental feedback?

Developmental feedback is future-facing and far less formal than the traditional performance review, so it's less nail-biting for your employees. Instead, it draws on the foundations of an employee's unique skills and experience. Then, it uses this as a solid base from which to grow.

These developmental-focused conversations rely on continuous feedback to achieve long-term career success. And when you provide this space to grow, both the employee and the company benefit. 

Need proof? A meta-analysis of 105 studies on leadership style found that empowering employees resulted in higher engagement metrics and more creative output. 

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager at Financer, explains his approach: 

"For developmental feedback, I try to focus on the positives and give constructive criticism in a way that centers around potential opportunities for growth. I strive to be objective in my delivery style—with a focus on results that can inform future plans or decisions. Whenever possible, I like to use anecdotal stories as this helps to humanize the conversation and add context." 

Tracking developmental feedback 

As developmental conversations aren't necessarily involved in administrative decisions, the framework to measure or track this feedback form is more fluid. 

The focus is on employee accountability, as each individual sets and measures their development under the guidance of their manager or mentor. 

Here are some guidelines to follow: 

1. Holding frequent development conversations: career trajectories constantly change in line with evolving roles, accumulated skills, and industry trends. Feedback sessions must happen regularly to reflect this. 
2. Linking ongoing feedback to competency models or career progression frameworks to connect the dots between growth and actionable steps. 
3. Encouraging individual accountability by providing all the information and resources your employees need, enabling them to take charge of their career paths. 
4. Assessing progress on developmental goals as part of your approach to performance management.

By implementing these strategies, you can create and nurture a culture of trust and collaboration, helping to foster open conversations and continuous employee growth. 

➡️ Check out some developmental goals examples to set your employees up for success.

📝 Sample developmental review questions

Multi-directional evaluative reports that take peer feedback into account. But developmental reviews only require question-and-answer input from employees and their managers or mentors. 

Some example questions include: 

For employees 

• What strengths would you like to develop further during this next development review cycle? (List three to five.) 
• Which skills would you like to improve during this next development review cycle? 
• What resources and support do you need from your manager and the company to meet your goals during this next development review cycle? 

For managers 

• Which of this employee's strengths would you like them to develop further? (List three to five.) 
• Which skills will allow them to develop the most as part of the team or company? 
• What specific things could this person do during this next development review cycle to progress their professional development goals? 

Sample developmental review action items 

Consider the following action items as examples of how to power forward following a review: 

• Attend an industry conference within the next quarter.
• Complete the certification program before X date. 
• Establish a timeline for increasing the scale of responsibility 
• Participate in a mentorship program. 
• Develop new business ideas and present them to your team. 

➡️ Alternatively, check out these six employee development methods to transform development conversations into actionable growth.

🆚 Evaluative vs. developmental feedback in a nutshell

Still confused about evaluative vs. developmental feedback? 

Michael Alexis breaks down how he approaches both in his role as CEO at teambuilding.com:"Developmental feedback is typically more focused on the process of learning, while evaluative feedback is more focused on the product of learning.

For developmental feedback, I try to provide a lot of positive reinforcement and ask questions to help the employee reflect on their own learning. For evaluative feedback, I am more likely to give specific feedback about what the employee did well or poorly and offer suggestions. More than anything, I treat each conversation like a dialogue and a learning opportunity rather than a lecture."

Here's a handy table to help you develop your strategy. 

Developmental reviews

• Future-facing informal feedback
• Employee-led
• Tied to individual career growth plans 
• Highly tailored to the individual
• Frequent, ongoing conversations designed to empower employees 
• Relies on thought-provoking questions from managers and mentors with an emphasis on employee accountability 

Evaluative reviews

• Reflective formal feedback
• Includes input from peers, managers, and direct reports 
• Tied to promotion and compensation decisions 
• Standardized approach across all employees 
• Less frequent feedback, perhaps as a quarterly or annual review process 
• Uses a formal rating system

📆 When should you use evaluative vs. developmental feedback?

You can incorporate the evaluative and developmental review types into different areas of performance management. 

You can use evaluative feedback for: 

• Reviewing past performance. 
• Comparing team members. 
• Deciding how to allocate compensation awards or bonuses.
• Selecting someone for a promotion or succession planning opportunity. 
• Making difficult decisions about employee terminations. 

You can use development feedback for: 

• Empowering employees to carve out their career paths.
• Cherry-picking the skills they want to learn.
• Identifying and supporting employees' development goals by providing resources and rich feedback. 
• Creating a reciprocal open dialogue where team members can discuss their successes, challenges, and setbacks in a non-judgmental environment. 

Where evaluative feedback tends to look backward to drive future decisions, development feedback propels an employee into the future by continuously building on their existing strengths.

🚨 But as two sides of the same coin, evaluative and developmental feedback can and should co-exist. 

It's only natural that if an employee focuses on developing their skills and knowledge, then performance improvements will follow suit. 

A study by Dominick et al. entitled The Effects of Peer Feedback on Team Member Behavior, revealed that a combination of evaluative and developmental feedback is particularly beneficial for overall team performance.

The study looked at three linked hypotheses: 

• Hypothesis 1: Participants who gave and received behavioral peer feedback will demonstrate effective team behavior more frequently than participants who did not give or receive feedback. 
• Hypothesis 2: Participants who gave but did not receive feedback will demonstrate effective team behavior more frequently than participants who did not give or receive feedback. 
• Hypothesis 3: Participants who gave and received feedback will not differ from participants who gave feedback only.

The results showed that when participants knew they would not receive developmental feedback, it would "diminish [their] motivation to set goals or regulate their behavior over time."

Similarly, participants who received feedback began to expect it after completing their second round of tasks.

The study concludes with the expectation of "even greater changes in behavior when information obtained through peer feedback instruments is combined with additional interventions such as the establishment of specific performance goals or by linking improvements to pay and other rewards."

🔁 Maximize the value of employee feedback with 360 reviews

Remember how important it is to set employee expectations about the review process? 

The solution is to use 360 feedback to embrace both developmental and administrative (evaluative) feedback strategically. 

When you invite positive and constructive feedback from a variety of peers, managers, direct reports, adjacent team members, business partners, customers, and more, you have a powerful engine to drive your administrative decision-making and inspire growth plans. 

Use a combination approach to cover: 

• talent management; 
• performance tracking; 
• high-potential planning; 
• leadership development; 
• retention initiatives;
• termination decisions; 
• skills development.

The key is to be open to multiple perspectives and use your 360 degree data collected to drive meaningful change. 

Tip: Do this by tracking progress, determining how employees compare to their organization counterparts and developing action plans.

➡️ Enable growth opportunities and performance with Zavvy

Zavvy offers a suite of tools to manage developmental and evaluative feedback. 

• 🔁 360-degree feedback tool: for peer-review feedback and performance management.
• 🌱 Employee development software: to create a culture of continuous growth.
• 🧭 Career pathing: demonstrate transparency by mapping out how your employees can get from A to B based on competencies.

Book a demo of Zavvy today and start driving a cycle of continuous growth.