An employee arrives on time each day. He or she always turns in that weekly report. You see a lot of chatter on Slack. Yet, how do you know the employee is doing good work? Some of your staff might be doing the work you will notice but not the work that needs to be done.

Machine learning is rapidly infiltrating today's workplace, in businesses of all shapes, sizes and industries -- and it's here to stay. In fact, so far in 2016 over 200 AI-focused companies have raised nearly $1.5 billion in funding, and equity deals to startups in AI increased 6x from roughly 70 in 2011 to almost 400 in 2015. Large companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have already begun to build their machine learning capabilities to handle large data sets and recognize patterns. But an area that machine learning hasn't yet fully infiltrated -- and one that it has the ability to transform -- is people management. In fact, 55 percent of organizations still report being weak at using HR data to predict workforce performance and improvement.

Though it's an integral part of a properly functioning managerial relationship, feedback remains a sticky subject for many whose jobs require them to provide it. Some fear the backlash that may result, others worry that it may jeopardize their career, and still others fret that their feedback is getting completely ignored. In fact, a recent study by VitalSmarts found that 83% of employees have witnessed a colleague say something that has had a negative impact on their careers, something the study's authors referred to as "suicide by feedback." On the other hand, regular feedback is vital for employee engagement, which can lead to profitability and productivity increases of more than 20%, according to a 2014 Gallup Poll. So how can managers get over their fear of the repercussions while keeping their employees engaged?

Though it's an integral part of a properly functioning managerial relationship, feedback remains a sticky subject for many whose jobs require them to provide it. Some fear the backlash that may result, others worry that it may jeopardize their career, and still others fret that their feedback is getting completely ignored. In fact, a recent study by VitalSmarts found that 83% of employees have witnessed a colleague say something that has had a negative impact on their careers, something the study's authors referred to as "suicide by feedback." On the other hand, regular feedback is vital for employee engagement, which can lead to profitability and productivity increases of more than 20%, according to a 2014 Gallup Poll. So how can managers get over their fear of the repercussions while keeping their employees engaged?