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What is feedforward and what are its benefits?
Feedforward focuses strictly on the potential benefits of future change. Discover more below.
Isabel Garc铆a
HR Consultant
28 of April, 2025
Managing a group of employees is often a challenge for many businesses, without a doubt. Therefore, the more resources we can add to our daily routine, the easier it will be to optimize this task. One of these tools is feedforward. Basically, it’s one of many existing methodologies to incentivize employees and increase production levels. Moreover, it also allows us to achieve better job performance levels. Next, we’ll delve more into this topic. Keep reading.
What is feedforward?
A whole series of mechanisms and tools come into action each time we have to contact an employee to evaluate their professional performance. One of these, which you might be using without knowing what it is, is feedforward. If we translate it into English, we can visualize it as pre-feeding. Whereas, on the other hand, feedback is input that focuses on what the employee has already done, feedforward focuses on the future starting from the present.
In summary, feedforward allows people within the company to envision the future and focus on improving each day. All this, from a paradigm of self-improvement and positivity. Motivating those who are part of our teams is critical for achieving commercial objectives in a shorter time frame. Additionally, on the other hand, it allows us to have better profit margins.
However, for this to happen, we need to know how to reinforce behaviors and competencies that yield good results. In addition to correcting those that aren’t as beneficial to us. Typically, feedback focuses on the past and can feel like punishment. Or, on the other hand, like a way of micromanaging people. Feedforward creates an entirely opposite effect and is even a widely used methodology among the most conscious leaders.
How is feedforward applied in a company?
The core of feedforward consists of future proposals and ideas about a specific aspect. Next, we’ll see that it’s based on a methodology capable of projecting a goal beyond learning from mistakes and problems:
- Set a goal. What do we want to change? How does it align with the company’s goals? When should it be changing?
- Verify the scenario. What’s happening and what obstacles are we encountering?
- Explore alternatives. What’s the worst and best that can happen? Is there a possibility of doing nothing about it? Should we consult with someone else?
- Define a course of action. What are we going to do? What’s needed to achieve it? How will we measure the results?
To correctly apply feedforward, company managers must have the ideal tools to measure talent and job performance evolution. A human resources software like Sesame, for example, allows you to study and analyze employees’ skills and abilities. This way, you can adequately assess each one’s progress.
Benefits and advantages
When feedback is negative, the chemistry in our brain produces hormones that cause stress. This, in turn, triggers fight or flight reactions. Therefore, the problem with regular feedback is that it focuses on scoring judgments, not on learning or development. However, with feedforward, it’s the exact opposite, hence, the advantages it brings are very diverse:
- Encourages growth. When workers receive positive feedback, it gives people a sense that there’s indeed an opportunity to improve. On the other hand, what the company expects is for that person to strive to overcome the circumstances they’re going through.
- Improves workplace well-being. When employees genuinely feel appreciated, believe they have space for professional development, and engage with the company, the internal workplace climate becomes fresher and more pleasant. People are the main competitive capital that companies possess. Therefore, the more comfortable they are, the better it will be for the organization and the workforce in general.
- Strengthens commitment. Employees perceive, when receiving feedforward, that their contributions are truly valuable to the organization they work for. Even if what they receive during the process isn’t positive feedback, feedforward makes workers feel genuinely valued. As a result, a strong sense of belonging develops, contributing to a notable improvement in employee engagement. This last factor is essential for retaining our workforce and optimizing the company’s performance while reinforcing the corporate culture as a whole.
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