This study explores whether employee responses to developmental feedback in a multitask setting differ when feedback focus on the task which is an employee’s relative strength (strength-congruent) or weakness (weakness-congruent), and wether employee response depends on whether the task is relatively more effort or ability driven. In a multitask setting, developmental feedback can be used to focus future employee efforts on one task over another. Using an experiment, I find that strength-congruent feedback on a more ability-driven task leads to a greater allocation of time to the task than when strength-congruent feedback is given on a more effort-driven task, or when weakness-congruent feedback is given. However, within the time spent on the task, I find greater performance improvement on the ability-driven task regardless of whether feedback is strength-congruent or weakness-congruent. This study broadens our understanding of the multitask environment and how employees allocate effort in the presence of communicated firm preferences.