The world of work is changing fast—and so is employment law. With new reforms coming into play across 2025 and 2026, there’s a growing focus on fairness, transparency, and how people are managed day to day. Whether it’s changes to flexible working or stronger employee protections, the message is clear: handling performance issues well isn’t just about being a good manager anymore—it’s something the law expects too. That means now’s the perfect time to sharpen up how our managers give feedback and have those important conversations.

But even managers’ best of intentions can falter without a clear, structured approach to feedback. This simple, practical model was designed by our learning team and is used across our training courses to help managers hold meaningful, respectful, and constructive conversations that support both performance and compliance. Share it with your managers and ask them to give it a go…

Step 1: Start with what you’ve seen or heard

Managers know exactly what they mean when they use labels such as “lazy,” “a nightmare,” “unprofessional”.  Coach them to ground the conversation in observable facts. What did you actually see or hear? Stick to specific behaviours or actions. For example:

“I noticed you arrived after 10am on three occasions last week without letting anyone know.”

This removes ambiguity and creates a platform for a productive dialogue.

Step 2: Explain what you’re concerned or pleased about

Encourage them to use phrases like “I’m concerned about…” or “I was pleased to see…” to set a respectful tone, then follow with a clear example:

“I’m concerned about the late arrivals, as it affects our ability to start the team meeting on time and puts extra pressure on the rest of the team.”

No doubt you are telling your managers that it’s important not to let emotion cloud the message—this technique will help them achieve that.

Step 3: Describe the Impact

People are far more likely to change their behaviour when they understand why it matters. Describing the impact of an action—on the team, on customers, on outcomes—brings a sense of purpose and urgency to the conversation.

Try…

“When team meetings start late, we lose valuable planning time and risk missing critical updates. It also affects team morale, as others feel they’re being kept waiting.”

This is great for addressing blind-spots too.

Step 4: Paint a picture of what’s needed

Often managers don’t do this because it feels like stating the obvious, but to the recipient of the feedback, it feels like they have left the conversation hanging in mid-air. End with clarity by telling the person what you’d like to see happen next time. This gives the feedback a forward-looking, constructive tone.

“Next week, I’d like you to arrive five minutes before the meeting so we can start on time and you’re up to speed.”

Be clear, realistic, and supportive. Feedback isn’t about punishment—it’s about progress.

How to communicate this to your teams

With employment law reforms on the horizon, there’s never been a more crucial time for HR teams to future-proof their ER strategy. With our clients, we’ve found that video content drives the most engagement when it comes to getting important messages across your workforce – quickly and with clout. To help, we’ve created an animated video of this technique that’s available to download here. Give it a go and we’d love to hear how you get on!