As a company leader or business owner, it is important to consistently look for ways to improve and grow your company. One method that continuously helps with improvements is collecting employee feedback.
This can be done in various ways and is extremely valuable when looking to better a company or organization as a whole. By collecting this information, you can solve any issues that arise and work towards improving overall company culture.
Many times, employees have issues with how things are run in a company but don’t necessarily feel comfortable enough to share their thoughts with upper management. Sometimes, they might even feel like they can express themselves but that changes won’t necessarily be made based on their feedback.
Instead of addressing these concerns with their superiors, employees sometimes resort to complaining to their coworkers. This contributes to low morale and a negative company culture. To fight off this cycle, offer opportunities to your employees to share their thoughts and concerns with you.
As an employer, it’s important to have a positive relationship with your employees. One of the most effective ways to build this relationship is to make sure they know you value their opinions. It’s important to make them feel like they can go to you for anything they need.
In order to make them feel this way, soliciting employee feedback needs to be part of your leadership style on a continuous basis. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to make this incorporate this system.
Develop the RIGHT Questions to Ask
You won’t be able to collect this valuable information without asking the right questions first. It’s wise to place your most important items toward the beginning of the survey or feedback form.
People generally are most enthusiastic in their answers when they begin a survey. They are most likely to provide the best responses to the first questions on the survey. Their minds are fresh and ready.
They aren’t yet bogged down by offering their feedback. With each question that passes, you may begin to get less spirited responses, unless it is an item they feel strongly about.
Be sure to word the questions on the survey in the right way. This is extremely important. Words matter and HOW you say something is equally as important as WHAT you say.
When using a survey to collect feedback(versus verbal interactions), you lose the benefit of nonverbal communication. Wording the questions the right way can help you overcome this handicap of written communication.
Ask others to read the questions and suggest different ways to say what you are trying to get across. Check to make sure the words you are using are portraying exactly the message you are hoping to get across.
Keep in mind that you are focused on improvement for the company. Before you develop the questions in the survey, define the goals for your company (if you haven’t already).
Read over them and ask yourself what your purpose is. It may be a good idea to include a leadership team or a small focus group to contribute to the improvement goals.
Identify all areas of improvement and then settle on 2-5 main ones. Your questions should align with your goals. Look at the questions and ask yourself if they will help propel your business into completing these goals.
Think about what sort of feedback would benefit you and your leadership team the most. Quantitative questions are easy to grab data from.
They can be interpreted in short time and shared with the staff. Qualitative data can be more helpful and provide more detailed responses.
Keep Surveys Short
Your staff members have a job to do and often times they are anxious when tedious tasks take them away from this. Naturally, you want them focused on their jobs as well!
Of course, surveys are a great way to collect employee feedback but be sure to make all the questions important and relevant to the employees. Once the questions are created, go over them again and make sure to only keep the ones that are absolutely necessary.
A good gauge to make sure you are on point with the length of the survey is to estimate whether it would take longer than 5 minutes to fill out. If so, consider revising and trimming it down. Asking close staff members, executive assistants and other leaders to complete a trial run may be a good idea.
Include Open Ended Questions
As mentioned earlier, open-ended questions can collect some detailed information. This sort of employee feedback offers detailed information that you otherwise may not receive.
While forming open-ended questions, set them up so that they are contextual. Ask a question, then make the next question based on the answer of the previous one.
This will allow your employee to further elaborate without laying out a huge intimidating question as the first item they see. Spreading them out this way makes the questions less visually overwhelming.
This makes the survey interactive and even enjoyable for employees, when they know it isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Give Your Employees the Option to Make It Anonymous or Not
Many employees may feel uncomfortable sharing their honest opinions if the surveys are not anonymous. However, as a manager it is nice to know who to address if there are concerns that come up from a survey. It’s also ideal to know which people in which area feel a certain way.
For example, does the sales team struggle with morale? Is the Human Resources department wishing they had more technology? Does IT feel they are not part of the overall culture?
It’s nice to know who is saying what so you can address these specific problems. A good solution to the question of anonymous-or-not is to give your employees the option of placing their name on their employee feedback form.
This gives them the power to handle the situation and do what feels most comfortable for them. Those that feel strongly about something will be sure to “own” it.
Overall feedback, whether anonymous or not, still has a vital role in company improvement. It allows for leaders to see the “big picture” of the employee’s feelings toward the business, leadership and changes that are being implemented.
Collect Feedback in Person
Though it’s important to give your employees the option of providing anonymous feedback, nothing is better than being able to have an employee come to you with any problems or concerns they’re having. Whether the feedback is negative, positive, or somewhere in between, hearing it in person helps build a connection between employee and employer.
It is very valuable as a leader to have face to face meetings with your employees. This opens the lines of communication between you and your staff. If you are having regular interaction with each of your employees, potential issues are met at the door and aren’t allowed to fester.
Have an open door policy in your office. Allow employees to come in at-will and make sure they know you are available to talk. Be approachable to your employees.
They should feel comfortable talking openly to you about any issues they may be having. Fear of retribution or anger will only keep problems buried, rather than encouraging growth and improvement.
Ask and Ask Again
If you asked for feedback and didn’t get the result you were expecting, don’t be afraid to ask again. Instead, make it a priority. Continue to ask on a consistent and routine basis.
tThis will really show your employees that you care and are looking for and desiring their feedback as your company continues to grow, change and improve.
Once employees know what to expect (for example, a survey each month/quarter, weekly one-on-ones, etc.), they’ll understand that it’s important to share and participate more. Don’t give up on your quest for employee feedback if it doesn’t go the way you expected the first few times.
Activities Can Help
Consider having team lunches, parties, or happy hours for your staff. This is a great way to get people to start expressing their opinions.
Free food encourages people to talk and creates a festive, open environment. This also creates improved morale. Little things like this will show your employees you are trying to build a bond between employees and employers.
This will ultimately improve your company culture. If your company already has an awesome culture…keep it up! Continue providing perks and small benefits that help employees become excited about the company and engaged in their work.
People that like what they do and for whom they do it for WANT to provide feedback to further improve the culture and company as a whole. Consider hosting “company wide meetings” which include a catered lunch.
This will allow the company to truly get together as a whole. By providing lunch, it creates an excited and fun atmosphere, rather than one of a required meeting.
Follow Up
As one of the most important steps, don’t forget to follow-up on employee feedback. If your employees are taking the time to express themselves, make sure to acknowledge and thank them for their help.
If appropriate, consider sharing the overall numbers and data of what you’ve received. Share what this means for the organization and what plans you have based off the data.
Ask for their ideas on what the company can do with the data. Inquire what the data means to them. It’s important to resist the urge to get defensive. Employees should feel safe offering their true thoughts. Remember, it’s about company improvement.
Along the same vein, when sharing the data with the employees, stress it is not a time for them to get defensive or critique one another. For example, if the data shows the IT department is slow to treat problems, the IT department shouldn’t make excuses and neither should the rest of the staff place blame. Sharing employee feedback is an opportunity for problem solving and brainstorming.
After you have made any changes within your company, it’s a good idea to follow-up then as well. Pull your employees into your office or make it part of their scheduled one-on-one.
Ask them how they are feeling about the changes. Do they like what’s being done? Has it addressed their needs and the needs of others. Are there any additional ideas they have or problems they would like solved? Show that you care about their opinions and that it matters.
Always Act on It
Naturally, making changes based on employee feedback is arguably the most important part of the whole process. Ask yourself now, the last time you sought out employee feedback, did you act on the data you received?
Were changes made? Did your company, employees and culture grow from the experience? Employees are much more likely to provide their feedback when they truly feel like they were heard the first time.
Whether it is your first time asking for employee feedback or it’s been part of your culture for a long time, always make sure to implement some sort of positive change post-survey season. This will make sure your employees feel like they’ve been heard.
Positive and measurable action will result in more employee sharing. More employee feedback means more company growth. Employee feedback is an essential part of company growth and development.
Your staff members are the ones on the front lines each day. They are making the sales, connecting with clients, creating the intellectual property and making a difference in the bottom line.
Keeping your employees happy and engaged in their work is essential to maintaining a positive company culture and morale. Asking for employee feedback tells your employees you value them and you value their daily experiences. It shares the success of the company with all of the stakeholders and allows for continuous improvement.
