Listening at work: How employee feedback shapes employee experience

Employee experience (EX) is shaped by day to day experiences, and and a big predictor of a strong EX is whether employees feel heard. For any organization trying to improve its employee experience, feedback is vital.

After all, listening to others is part of getting better. You must find out what you are doing well, what could be done better and what you may have overlooked completely.

What is employee experience?

Your employee experience is the sum total of what it’s like for people to work at your company. It’s every interaction employees have with your company, from onboarding to exit. It’s how leaders manage employees. It’s how colleagues engage with each other. I’s culture, values, policies, procedures, benefits, development opportunities, workload – in short, it’s everything that influences how your people feel about their job and coming to work every day.

Your employee experience can exist on a spectrum between very positive and very negative, which is where feedback comes in.

Why is employee feedback so important?

There are many benefits of soliciting employee feedback – and they all have a direct line to an exceptional employee experience.

• Positive influence on retention. When you ask employees for feedback, they feel heard and valued.  You’re telling them, “I’m interested in what you have to say and your words will have an impact.” No one has to suffer in silence. As a result, this strengthens employee engagement and morale and influences whether employees want to stay at your company and for how long.

• Promotes inclusion. Asking employees for feedback makes them feel involved and included in organizational decision-making and more connected to their workplace in general.

• Fosters an environment of mutual respect. When people across the workforce listen to each other, they gain exposure to other perspectives and come to understand each other more.

• Encourages a speak-up culture and contributes to an atmosphere of psychological safety. In a pro-feedback workplace, employees know they can speak openly and honestly – even when their feedback is not entirely positive – without repercussions, judgment or dismissal.

• Builds trust between managers and employees. Sharing feedback – and actively listening to feedback and applying it – can significantly strengthen this all-important relationship.

• Identifies needs and flags issues proactively. Having an ear to the ground regularly will help you notice and address warning signs before they escalate into major problems that take greater time and resources to repair.

• Strengthens compliance and risk management. When employees are asked to share feedback and feel comfortable doing so, they can alert you to risks and other vulnerabilities you may not have been aware of.

• Supports informed decision-making grounded in reality. Feedback is a reality check. When you know what’s going on with your people and have obtained their opinions and perspectives, it’s easier to avoid assumptions and make better decisions with better outcomes.

• Helps leaders become more effective. Managers can learn a lot from employees about whether their leadership style is helpful and aligned with employees’ wants. They can understand what works well and how they can improve – before an employee abruptly quits over a conflict with management.

• Drives continuous improvement and a culture of innovation. Being the closest to the day-to-day work and living out all the procedures and policies of the workplace, employees often have great ideas and deep insights about what works best. If you ask for their feedback, you may discover that their knowledge and experience can help your company realize process efficiencies, quality improvements, more harmonious team dynamics and new products and services, as examples.

Remember – listening to your employees is the only way you can know whether you have created an environment conducive to getting the best work out of them and are delivering the support, resources and opportunities they desire.

What happens when organizations fail to get feedback?

However, if your organization does not make it a regular practice to solicit employee feedback, it may experience the exact opposite of the positive impacts outlined above.

• Your employees will not feel heard or valued, leading to disengagement and diminished morale. This can lead employees to “quiet quit,” which then impedes productivity and work quality.

• You are likely operating blindly in the dark, unaware of what your employees think and feel. This makes you susceptible to unpleasant surprises you never saw coming. Problems may not be detected until they escalate into major issues.

• You don’t have any objective data or information to support your decision-making. Making uninformed decisions can cause widespread dissatisfaction among employees or create new problems.

• The potential exists for a growing gap between leaders and employees, in which neither side understands the other and how they are perceived.

• Without employees’ ideas, your organization can stagnate and become more complacent.

What’s the best way to gather employee feedback?

There are many ways in which you can integrate feedback loops into your workplace so that you receive employees’ input consistently.

• One-on-one meetings. This is the most practical and regular way to obtain employee feedback frequently. Ideally, managers meet with their direct reports weekly. During these conversations, managers should ask employees what’s on their mind, what’s working well (or what isn’t) and if they have any other feedback to offer about the workplace. This should be an open, trusting space in which to share concerns or ideas in a more private setting.

• Employee surveys. A quarterly or annual employee survey is a great way to collect employee feedback, giving you a chance to establish an employee baseline and gather data for future use and analysis. Surveys can be completed digitally, meaning this can be a quick and efficient endeavor. Surveys also offer the benefit of anonymity for those employees with negative feedback or those who don’t feel comfortable speaking up in front of their manager or peers.

Just be sure to explain to employees well in advance the purpose of the survey and the information you’re looking for. Provide examples of results that have originated from past surveys so that employees understand the potential impact.

• Group feedback. You can also hold focus groups, roundtables or townhalls with larger groups of employees. These methods offer efficiency in that you’re speaking with multiple employees simultaneously and can capture their feedback in real time. However, the drawback of these methods is that some employees may be intimidated to speak up in front of other peers, while others dominate the discussion.

• Additional channels. Offer other anonymous methods for reporting immediate concerns, such as a phone hotline or online tip center.

• Exit surveys. You may have already lost an employee, but don’t miss out a valuable chance to get more feedback about your workplace – and why they are leaving – on their way out the door during an exit survey. These soon-to-be-former employees may be inclined toward more honesty and forthrightness, given their departure.

Which questions should companies ask to gauge employee experience?

When you speak with employees about their input, or put together questions for a survey, you should inquire about:

• Their level of trust in your company.
• The level of accountability they perceive within your company.
• The quality and frequency of collaboration in the workplace.
• Their perception of whether they have sufficient support and resources to succeed.
• How engaged they are.
• Whether they think their manager is interested in them and willing to coach them toward their goals.
• How they feel about career goals and potential for advancement.
• Whether they would promote the organization publicly.
• Whether they would recommend someone else to work at the company.
• Where they see themselves in five years.
• What the company can do better.
• Whether they feel their role contributes to overall success.

When asking these questions via survey, allow spaces for employees to expand on their answers beyond a rank on a “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” scale.

Employees’ responses to these questions should provide compelling insight into their employee experience.

How can companies act on employee feedback to improve retention?

Collecting employee feedback is half the battle – now, you must convert that information into action. If employees take the time and put the effort into giving your company feedback, they need to see the results – or at least hear a response from leadership – in a timely manner. The worst approach is to maintain silence.

• When feedback is submitted personally, demonstrate active listening with employees. Ask follow-up questions, clarify meaning and confirm what you heard.
• When feedback is submitted digitally, acknowledge receipt.
• Let employees know upfront what the review process looks like and what the possible timeframe is.
• Share employee insights with leadership and discuss which actions are feasible at this time. Review data, if available, and look for trends.
• Respond to employees, preferably within a month, with next steps. If you cannot implement a suggestion or take a specific action right now, explain why.
• Track the impact of any changes you make over time to determine how beneficial they are to employee experience. For example, does turnover decrease?

Don’t forget that your response itself to employee feedback is part of the employee experience!

Frequently asked questions

Key takeaways

• Gathering employee feedback regularly is linked to higher engagement, greater sense of inclusion, stronger trust and improved retention, among other key benefits. All these attributes are part of a positive workplace culture and outstanding employee experience.
• There are many tools to gather feedback regularly. The most common mechanisms for obtaining feedback is during weekly one-on-one meetings between managers and employees and quarterly or annual employee surveys.
• Ask employees a wide variety of questions centered on employee experience.
• Follow up on the submission of employee feedback in a timely manner, with updates on what the company’s next steps are and why.

For more information on enhancing your company’s employee experience, download our free report: A critical moment: why employee experience should be every company’s priority.