How to Collect Better Employee Feedback

Do you want to learn how to better serve your customers, create a better workplace environment, or boost revenue? Instead of turning to a high-priced consultant or management guru, how about simply seeking the opinions and wisdom of your team? We can almost guarantee that you'll be blown away at how much insight they have!

In this article, we discuss why employee feedback is valuable and give tips regarding how to collect it effectively. Let's get started!

The benefits of employee feedback

If you've never collected employee feedback before, you may not fully understand why it can be so useful to companies. The truth is, employee feedback has many benefits. But, in our experience, the following two advantages are the most valuable:

Unique insights

Your employees have insights that you, as a business owner or manager, don't. After all, employees are the ones that deal with customers on a regular basis. They're in the trenches, so they have first-hand knowledge of what your target market needs and the ways in which your company can better serve them.

Employees also have a unique view of company policies. Are the rules you've set in place too restrictive or not restrictive enough? You won't truly know until you ask.

Engaged workers

Collecting employee feedback also creates more engaged workers. According to OfficeVibe, 43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once per week, compared to just 18% of staff with low engagement.

When your team feels like their opinions matter, they'll be more invested in their work, which will lead to higher staff retention rates and greater employee loyalty. This is important as staff turnover can cost anywhere from 16% to 213% of a departing employee's annual salary depending on their position. In other words, it's expensive.

5 ways to collect better employee feedback

Great, collecting employee feedback can lead to unique insights and more engaged workers! But how do you actually do it? Here are five tips to help you:

1. Use a suggestion box

It's old school, but it works. It's also incredibly easy to set up: find a box, put a stack of paper and a pen next to it, and let your team write down their thoughts and submit them anonymously. Pretty simple, right?

Notice, we said, "submit them anonymously." It's important for your employees to feel safe when they send in feedback. If they're afraid that they might be hassled for their opinions, or worse, lose their jobs, you'll never get honest, useful insights from them.

Make sure that your team always has a way to submit feedback anonymously — whether via a retro suggestion box or some other means.

2. Send out employee surveys

If you want to obtain insights regarding certain areas of your company, send out a survey, such as an NPS, pulse, or comprehensive survey.

• NPS: Short for Net Promoter Score, an NPS survey separates participants into three groups: promoters, passives, and detractors. A score is then tallied, ranging between -100 and +100. Get more details here.  
• Pulse: This kind of survey can be sent quickly and frequently. You present a number of statements, and ask team members to rate their agreement on a scale: Strongly Disagree (1 point), Disagree (2), Neutral/Neither Agree or Disagree (3), Agree (4), Strongly Agree (5). Pulse surveys are a great way to get in-depth insight fast.
• Comprehensive: A comprehensive survey will give you the most information regarding your team, hence the name. While pulse surveys can be sent on a regular basis, comprehensive surveys should be sent annually, bi-annually at the most.

To get your survey to your team, use an online tool like SurveyMonkey. Environmentally friendly solutions like this one will save you the cost of printing plus it helps the planet. You can also embed a survey in recognition software like Kudos.

3. Hold regularly scheduled team meetings

You probably meet with your team at least once a week anyway, so all you have to do to take advantage of this tip is to ask your staff for suggestions before concluding your meeting!

While insights and opinions shared in this forum won't be anonymous, it will give your team the chance to collaborate and bounce ideas off of each other.

4. Conduct private one-on-one meetings

This type of setting is much more intimate and will give your staff a chance to voice opinions that they may not be comfortable sharing in front of their colleagues.

And why not host your one-on-one in a location other than your office? Take your team member to lunch or go for a walk outside. The change in scenery and casual setting will help them open up and share honest feedback.

5. Use Glassdoor

You probably know Glassdoor as the website where current and former employees anonymously review companies. Some of the benefits of getting feedback from current employees include increased performance and engagement and diffusing conflicts before they happen. Glassdoor even provides handy email templates that make it easy to request feedback from employees in a variety of roles.  

Act on the intel you receive

Once you gather feedback, be sure to act on the intel you receive from your employees. When your team realizes that their suggestions are taken to heart and even acted on, they'll be much more open to giving feedback in the future.

So don't just ask for employee feedback as a formality. That won't benefit you, your employees, or the company. Taking action with the insights you receive will set you apart from other organizations.

Talk to us

Looking for more ways to get and use employee feedback? Kudos helps companies all over the world connect with the opinions and insights of their team members. Use the chatbot at the bottom right to open a conversation. Or reach us here.

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