Changes have arrived in the employee review nomenclature, in order to assuage younger workers who experience anxiety when it’s time to evaluate their job performance, The Wall Street Journal reported.

One word on its way out in some companies is feedback, which too often leaves workers feeling defeated, proponents told the Journal. The replacement word, “feedforward,” apparently encourages improvement and development.

“The old assumptions of feedback, and all that word conjures up, I think puts a chill on performance,” Joe Hirsch, a corporate speaker and author of a book on how to fix feedback, told the Journal. “Feedforward is about this forward-looking view of people, performance and potential.” 

The new word is also a response to younger workers, an increasing proportion of the workforce, who prefer a more positive, nurturing environment, the Journal reported.

“Feedback conversations, as they commonly exist today, activate a social-threat response in the brain, interfering with the ability to think clearly, and raising heart rates,” said Theresa Adams, senior human-resources knowledge adviser at human-resources trade association SHRM, in an interview with the Journal.

Marc Howells, vice president of talent and development at AstraZeneca, said that the company has replaced yearly reviews with quarterly check-ins. Feedback and performance management are now “feedforward” and “performance development.” 

“As soon as someone says, I want to give you feedback, people go into a defensive reception,” he told the Journal. 

And at some companies, reviews are no longer reviews. At Microsoft, where managers are encouraged to use the word “perspectives” instead of traditional feedback, they are now “connect” conversations.

Human resources specialists interviewed by the Journal acknowledged the generational divide on the issue.

Baby boomers learned to suck it up and perform, said Megan Gerhardt, a management professor at Miami University and the author of a book on leading intergenerational workforces. As members of Gen Z speak more openly about mental health and anxiety, employers have become more sensitive to their perspective, she said.

Another issue may be the difficulty that many younger employees have experienced in entering the workforce after the pandemic. Managers had loosened expectations on productivity and performance, and they may have had less stringent grading in college amid remote classes, the Journal reported.

“It’s the first time that they have not just gotten professional feedback, but it might be the first time in quite a while that somebody said, ‘You know, this isn’t good enough,’” Gerhardt said. She recommended that managers provide clarity on the purpose and frequency of reviews and on how employees should respond to them.