Employee feedback survey

4 Killer Methods to Collect Employee Feedback

Getting good, honest employee feedback is a must have for any smart organisation. However, this can be tricky to do at times; like fear of getting reprimanded by management, or think that their opinion won’t be heard. In this article, we share some great methods to collect employee feedback, and how to tackle these roadblocks.

Your people are your greatest asset, so it makes natural sense that their feedback is vital for any manager to know, and learn from. These four methods will help you along the path to collect valuable insights form your team, and improve the overall culture and well being of your organisation.

Regular employee performance reviews

Talking one-on-one with your employees is a great way to collect employee feedback on engagement and satisfaction, however there can be some drawbacks. If reviews are too far and few, employees might feel like their input isn’t valued, or may not bring up months old issues.

It is important to create an atmosphere of open honesty where they can bring up things without fear of being reprimanded. Employee reviews can be a source of anxiety for some people, so making sure the focus is on a common goal and making language objective can aid this and extract some useful information in the process.

Read further tips on performance appraisals for employees.

Team meetings

Although one-on-one meetings are necessary, you can also collect employee feedback from holding regular team meetings. It’s sometimes easier to share and give input in a group setting, which is where team meetings can come in handy. Using team meetings as a way to provide feedback can encourage employees to speak up when they feel they have the support of their fellow colleagues.

Regular stand-up meetings can have huge benefits, depending on their structure and how they are performed.

Suggestion box

Now before you go and throw out your suggestion box to adopt a snappy new method of obtaining feedback, consider that the anonymity of a suggestion box can provide a great outlet to collect employee feedback. It also lets your employees know that their opinions are welcome outside of other formal feedback collection methods.

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Placing a QR code (created via a QR code maker) on the suggestion box helps you collect feedback in digital format. Just make sure to check it regularly and to actually address any issues posted, otherwise it’ll do nothing more than collect dust in the corner, and your employees will feel cheated that none of their feedback was actioned.

If you don’t action feedback from your employees, they will feel cheated and ignored.

Regular employee surveys

Overall, employee feedback surveys are the top method of getting feedback from your employees.

Having said that, there are a few factors to consider when creating surveys to get quality feedback.

  • Surveys with broad, over-arching questions such as “Are you satisfied with the company” have the potential to reveal an unhappy employee, but more often than not will invite people to respond with what you want to hear.
  • Be careful not to ask ‘leading questions’. If you put words into your teams mouths, they will likely agree out of habit. For example ‘Don’t you love the car parking for staff’ is leading ‘How I feel about staff car parking’ would be more worthwhile.
  • Addressing specific topics with targeted questions, is a great way to evoke deeper thought on a subject and gives more potential for an honest answer.
  • The frequency of employee surveys is very important.  Having only one survey a year can leave employees feeling like they are participating in a formality, and that their feedback will go unheard. It is likely issues that were pertinent a month or more ago would have been forgotten by this time as well.
  • Finding a good balance between survey length and frequency can also make filling it out feel like less of a chore and help increase the quality of the feedback.

By using some of the methods above, you can work towards creating more engaged employees and a culture that support your company’s values.

In Summary

Managers across the globe know that it is paramount to collect employee feedback. Doing so can yield great insights and lead to brilliant changes that can improve overall team performance, and in turn company profits.

Why not utilise feedback from your company’s greatest assets, your employees, and make changes for the better. Good luck!