How Do You Write An Employee Feedback Email? 8 Sample Templates

It can be a dreadful thing to provide feedback to your team members. Common questions managers and team leaders ask themselves are: 

• How are they going to react to my feedback?
  
• Might they start cold-shouldering me for being a bit harsh?
  
• Could I ever disagree with someone without rattling them?
  
• What if my positive feedback came off as condescending?
• Is this the right time to provide feedback?

And so on. These fears may not be unreasonable. You’re dealing with human beings. It’s important to exercise caution before and while communicating. Being a manager is hard. You may need to stomp on a few eggshells from time to time. 

But the good news is that, whatever you may believe, employees long for feedback. One survey found that 72 percent of employees thought that managers providing critical feedback was important for their career development, among other things. But only 5 percent believe that managers do provide such feedback. 

As a manager, you’re aware of why feedback is crucial. Your fears stem from knowledge, not ignorance. So we’re not going to reel off the benefits of feedback. 

Rather, we’re sharing eight psychologically-vetted sample employee feedback email templates for different scenarios. 

1. Positive feedback
   
2. Constructive feedback
   
3. Coaching feedback
   
4. Performance reviews
   
5. Onboarding feedback
   
6. Continuous feedback
   
7. Project-specific feedback
   
8. Negative feedback

1. Positive Feedback

Appreciating someone should not be difficult. That’s what people are always craving for, deservedly or otherwise. But keep a few things in mind:

• Be specific: Tell them what exactly you’re grateful for.
  
• Be sincere: Appreciate, but don’t flatter. Don’t sound hollow.
  
• Consider the employee: Some people don’t like being praised too much, or in the presence of everyone. Respect that.
  
• Focus on the effort: Don’t be hung over the results. Show them you’re aware of their hard work in pulling something off.

2. Constructive Feedback

Having made sure your feedback is going to be constructive, timely, consensual, and non-trivial, keep the following in mind:

• Focus on actions: Talk about the employee’s actions, not their personality.
  
• Highlight the issues: If something went wrong, highlight it. Don’t be vague.
  

Focus on the future: Offer ideas for improvement. Don’t dwell on the past.

While giving constructive feedback, you want to apply the “sandwich” method: Good-Feedback-Good. You start off appreciating the employee’s hard work; you give your feedback; and you close on another quick note of appreciation.

3. Coaching Feedback

You’ve decided to provide guidance to an employee and improve their skills in a specific area. Make sure to frame your email based on the following:

• Push the growth mindset: Cultivate a growth mindset in the team member. Avoid language that might hint that the employee has a fixed set of abilities.
  
• Facilitate conversation: Coaching feedback isn’t a one-way drag. Encourage the employee to participate in the conversation.
  
• Provide a roadmap: Set SMART goals. Institute a “progress bar,” and help the employee keep track of their performance.
  

Offer ongoing support: Assure the employee of your full support.

4. Performance Reviews

Drafting a performance review email can be tricky if the concerned employee hasn’t performed as expected. You want to:

• Be open to the employee’s position: Poor performance can be due to various things. Acknowledge the employee’s reasons. 

• Balance positive reinforcement with constructive criticism: Acknowledge the employee’s strengths first, and then suggest areas of improvement.
  
• Avoid vague generalizations: Being specific is part and parcel of any feedback.  Point out where you think the employee might have gone astray.
  
• Watch your tone: Tone is everything. Remember, the goal of a performance review is to help the employee, not to vent your frustration. 

5. Onboarding Feedback

Making a new employee feel genuinely welcome is the hallmark of a successful onboarding email sequence. With that in mind:

• Craft a warm subject line: Your subject line can be formal or informal, but it should be warm. Not sentimental though. It should make the recipient feel at home. If you want, it can be light and funny.
  
• Establish a common ground: Relate to the new member’s onboarding experience by sharing your own similar experience in the past.
  
• Explain the process: Now that you’ve eased the recipient into some form of acquaintance, explain the onboarding process (in bullets, if possible.)
  
• End the email on a friendly note: Assure them of your ongoing support and availability. Give them the time to adjust. Invite questions. 

Read more: Top 8 B2B Email Subject Lines That Get Opens

6. Continuous Feedback

A regular employee feedback email needs to be concise and actionable. Bear the following points in mind:

• Focus on progress, not perfection: Acknowledge the team member’s improvements over the last quarter. Share the fact that you’re impressed. Celebrate small wins.
  
• Request the employee’s inputs: If you’re worried that your being impressed might come off as condescending, ask the employee whether they agree with your estimation of their work. 

7. Project-specific Feedback

The criteria remain, more or less, the same. Your feedback should be specific, constructive, actionable, non-personal, and forward-looking. But as a manager, you may need to pay particular attention to the following two roadblocks in this case:

• Recency bias: Recency bias is a cognitive bias that overemphasizes recent events while neglecting historic ones. You don’t want to focus too much on the employee’s recent project-specific blunders while ignoring their previous accomplishments.
  
• The Halo effect: The opposite is equally true. If you have a positive impression of an employee, don’t let it downplay serious shortcomings. Avoid candy-coating the feedback. To reiterate, your goal is to help, not to indulge your own impressions. 

8. Negative Feedback

Giving negative feedback is difficult if you have an affable personality. But if you don’t, you’ll find it easy – and that’s a problem too. No matter which category you fall under, get out your sticky notes for the following:

• Choose the right time: Neither hurry nor dawdle. Make sure the employee can take immediate action. But also, don’t wait too long. That would reduce the impact of your feedback. 

• Show respect: Treat the employee as someone who has a right to defend themselves. Be calm and empathetic. Do not signal a confrontational mood.
  
• Be direct, not harsh: Provide highly targeted feedback around certain behaviors, performances, and milestones. Avoid making blanket judgments.
  
• Identify solutions: Don’t dwell on the problem for long. Help the employee identify solutions, and set realistic goals. 

Beyond The “Template” Mindset

It is critical to understand the difference between templates and archetypes. What we shared are not archetypal standards. These templates are only meant to act as a springboard for all your feedback-related communications. We’re not dictating standards for you or your organization. 

But certain things remain constant. These include empathy, honesty, generosity, and responsibility. Our employee feedback email samples reflected all these, and so should your communications going forward. 

Need help designing appealing, responsive, dollar-driving email templates? Share your design files with us, and sit back and chill for the next eight hours.