Job Aid Sample
Project Title: Receiving Feedback
Client: Riverside Medical Center (Fictional)
Tools Used in Development: Canva
Background and Analysis
Nursing and administrative staff at Riverside Medical Center work together to ensure smooth operations. Over the past two quarters, budget constraints increased pressure on both teams to improve. Cross-departmental manager meetings became tense, with conflict arising when nursing supervisors passed along negative feedback about the admin team.
Nursing supervisors were previously trained to deliver objective feedback: they communicated in a generally professional tone. Admin managers, however, often reacted by defending their team or questioning the feedback. Other times, they appeared frustrated, saying the nursing staff hadn't noticed recent improvements.
After these meetings, nursing supervisors expressed doubt that admin managers would follow up. Some admin managers did take action but failed to report back. Others tried to follow up but hadn't collected adequate information about the problem in the meeting.
The lack of progress in resolving performance issues contributed to increased patient complaints. Performance also stagnated, with little progress made in improving the efficiency of patient care.
Receiving Feedback Job Aid.pdfTraining Content
After observing the meetings, consulting staff, and analyzing performance metrics, I designed a solution that involved:
An instructor-led training session on receiving feedback for admin managers
An accompanying job aid to use for cross-departmental meetings
The main aim of the training was for participants to follow a research-backed four-step method when responding to negative feedback:
Say thanks and express a desire to improve.
Restate what they heard about the problem.
State the actions they’ll take in response to the feedback.
State their plan for reporting back on the outcomes.
Implementation and Results
Participants in the instructor-led session practiced responding to negative feedback using the four-step process to reduce conflict and directly address the performance issue. The job aid supported the integration of those behaviors into the workplace. It featured a reminder of the process and questions designed to ensure effective follow-up.
The result was reduced conflict in cross-departmental meetings, enabling more objective discussions of work performance. This not only improved the resolution rate of identified issues, but contributed to enhancing operational efficiency. After the training, a reduction in interdepartmental complaints coincided with increased patient care efficiency metrics, suggesting a correlation between the handling of feedback and improved operations.