All companies are aware of the importance of market research. Knowing the target audience implies knowing their tastes, their interests and their needs to identify what products and services make them fall in love with the company. In other words, companies are always looking for customers’ feedback.
But what about employee feedback?
As with costumers’ feedback, employee feedback is essential for business growth. Because, it’s difficult to offer quality if the people in charge of providing it do not develop in a prosperous and motivating environment.
For this reason, for any Human Resources department, knowing how employees feel must be a priority. Only in this way can the organization take the appropriate measures to guarantee a positive workplace climate that keeps its workforce active, motivated and productive.
What is meant by employee feedback?
Feedback is the response process that a person gives to a given stimulus. For example, a positive comment towards a job well done.
It’s common in companies to see this process by managers towards their collaborators. For example: in performance evaluations, as a consequence of certain results, after achieving an objective, etc.
Instead, employee feedback helps companies understand how internal talent management and development processes work. In that case, employees convey to managers their perceptions, opinions, and assessments on topics such as leadership, the work environment, compensation, etc.
Thanks to employee feedback, companies can identify the strengths that differentiate them from the competition, enhance them, and improve team commitment while increasing talent attraction and retention.
Also, it’s useful to determine which areas of improvement are responsible for slowing down the growth and development of the company, and thus solve them even before they represent an actual problem. In other words, employee feedback is an essential tool for detecting difficulties that could endanger the business, making decision-making a proactive and agile process.
Why is it important to have employee feedback?
- Enables changes with a real impact on the results of the organization. With the feedback of the employees, you obtain exact and precise information to improve the organization and take it to the desired point.
- Increases the engagement and commitment of employees. Asking for the opinion of employees means listening to them and taking their voices into account, making them feel valued. When team members realize that they are a vital part of the executive management process, their involvement in improving the company increases.
- Boost performance and productivity. Employee feedback provides managers with deeper insight into how the business works. Open and transparent communication allows you to know what things are working well, and what needs to be improved so that workers can perform better in their functions.
- Helps create healthy and positive relationships with team members. Many companies manage talent unilaterally without taking into account the people who report to them, which ends up generating feelings of frustration and misunderstanding among employees. On the other hand, if you’re interested in what they have to say, you will not only be contributing to improving their well-being, but you are also laying the foundations for a trusting relationship based on honesty, transparency and respect.
- Improves the work environment. Knowing and identifying the needs of employees allows you to create the perfect environment for both personal and professional development. In a suitable work environment, employees feel more motivated and satisfied, which is why they are more likely to be willing to give their best.
- Cost savings. Yes, because with the information gathered from the employees you will be able to focus on what really influences the development of the business, and stop spending time and money on other aspects that are irrelevant to the success of the organization.
How to manage employee feedback
Below, we show you 5 strategies that will make it easier for you to manage employee feedback . Thus, you will always have quality information at hand.
1. Make gathering employee feedback a regular activity
Asking employees for feedback should be an integral part of running the business. It is not worth doing it from time to time. In order for employees to know that it is necessary and useful, they must be aware that it is an issue that the organization takes seriously.
For this reason, it’s advisable to systematize the process and use the appropriate tools so that employees can automatically offer their feedback to the company at a previously determined frequency.
2. Centralize the information
There are many ways to gather employee feedback: from individual interviews to employee surveys.
Whatever the system you choose, all the information must be in the same place and, if it is in the cloud, even better. Today many employees work remotely and their feedback is also important.
For this reason, to speed up the process, it is advisable to opt for a tool that, apart from offering the necessary resources for gathering employee feedback, also has an evaluation and monitoring system included. Thus, you will be able to monitor the feedback and see its evolution in real time, indicating whether the changes you are introducing in your organization are on the right way or not.
3. Use specialized software
As we’ve already mentioned, there are many ways to get employee feedback. But there is one that stands out for its usefulness, versatility and effectiveness: employee surveys.
A software specialized in employee surveys provides you with the resources you need to collect accurate, relevant and quality information in a short time, which is very useful in a business environment as changing as the current one.
Employee surveys have many advantages: they are easy to use, they do not require a large financial investment, they have a high participation rate, and the anonymity of the responses helps to provide more reliable and objective data than with any other method.
4. Leverage feedback to take appropriate action
Asking for employee feedback is the first step in improving the company. But it is useless if that information is not used.
It is important to evaluate and analyze the data to find out what the current situation of the company is, what is working, what can be improved, and what needs to be changed.
This is extremely important, because if employees feel that you are ignoring their contributions, their motivation and commitment could suffer, influencing the results of the entire organization.
If there is something worse than not asking for feedback, it is asking for it and not using it.
5. Share the results
And not only that, it’s also a good idea to share how the company is going to use the feedback from the employees showing an action plan based on the contributions of all the people who have participated in giving their opinion.
If you are looking for a simple but powerful tool to gather employee feedback, evaluate it, and follow up, Team Insights can work for you:
- It has a library of surveys designed to obtain the most relevant and reliable data.
- It’s visually appealing and easy to understand, so no prior HR Analytics study is needed. Anyone can use it.
- Being a SaaS, it does not require installation. And all the data is in the cloud, safe and protected against third-party attacks. You will never lose the information.
- It’s free!
