Make meaningful change through employee listening
Employee listening programs can transform your company by bringing employee voices to the forefront of strategic planning. When leaders adopt a transparent and open approach to the workforce, they encourage employees to express their views and share valuable information about how to improve their business. However, for meaningful changes to occur, businesses need to know how to effectively utilize employee feedback. This is often the most challenging part of an employee’s listening strategy. If a company is unable to act on the feedback collected, it will deny the entire purpose of the initiative. Send a message that feedback is not collected for anything and that employee opinions are not valued. This article aims to prevent such negative consequences by guiding six simple steps to turn feedback into practical change.
Six steps to leverage employee feedback
1. Sort data to identify patterns
You may find the initial amount of data you collect overwhelming. Therefore, it is important to group based on several factors. First, keep in mind the goals you set when designing your employee listening strategy. They will help you clarify what type of information you are looking for. Next, if you grasp the data with a comb, you will definitely notice insights that come up more frequently than others. These recurring insights reflect employee behavior and patterns of opinions that require special attention. Identify the top 3-4 issues that stand out and collect all relevant qualitative and quantitative data. Data and text analysis tools help you find the information you need by detecting targeted keywords in employee-generated comments.
2. Prioritize the most urgent issues
The first step can cause many issues that require attention. However, you cannot take care of everything at once. In addition, certain tasks are probably more important than others. To effectively utilize employee feedback, you need to identify the most urgent issues and focus on them. But how do you do that? They can have a big impact on your company, so start with issues relating to retention, employee engagement, productivity, or culture. Another thing to consider is the time and resources needed to address the challenge. Something may not be urgent, but if it can be resolved quickly, scratching from your to-do list may be worth it. Finally, prioritize changes that are most closely matched to your existing organizational goals. This ensures stakeholder buy-in and increases the chances of smooth and fast resolution.
3. Involve appropriate stakeholders
For an organizational strategy to achieve the desired outcome, it must be a collective effort. Therefore, once you identify issues that require urgent attention, you cannot rely on the HR team. Every level of the organization can play a role in improving various aspects of the company. Higher-level executives can implement changes that affect the entire organization and require collaboration across multiple departments. Low-level managers can launch small initiatives within their respective teams. Finally, employees can use their listening circles to brainstorm and provide feedback on the measures being taken. This comprehensive approach ensures that everyone is involved and shared accountability in the process of enhancing the working environment.
4. Take action
At this point, you know which issues need to be addressed and who will help you implement the changes you need. So it’s time to take action and be transparent about it. It is essential to tell employees what is changing, why is changing, and what to expect during the transition period. Keeping employees in a loop will reassure them that their feedback is appreciated and encourage them to become more collaborative. Another tip for effectively utilizing employee feedback is to establish clear expectations. This includes announcing who will be responsible for what, setting deadlines and clarifying KPIs. Finally, don’t forget to celebrate a small victory, even if there’s more to do. Recognizing any advancement motivates everyone to continue and increases the reliability of employee listening programs.
5. Close the feedback loop
If there is significant progress, you should summarize the results of your employee listening program and make sure you close the feedback loop. Do this, send an email, or hold company-wide meetings that can be shared with employees and other stakeholders to share key insights gathered through various listening methods and actions taken accordingly. We present the results achieved, explain how they improved operations, and draw conclusions by discussing possible steps in the future. This approach motivates employees to see the specific impact of opinions and feedback and to actively engage in the well-being of the organization.
6. Monitor the results of the monitoring
The final step to leveraging employee feedback is to continue to monitor the outcomes of employee listening strategies. Even if you get off to a solid start, it’s essential to maintain your results by continuously checking in with your employees, gathering opinions on how things are going, and making minor adjustments as needed. To achieve this, you don’t need to maintain a fully-employee listening strategy indefinitely. Instead, you can conduct a rapid pulse survey that employees can complete in minutes, but it provides valuable insight into the effectiveness of the initiative. By doing this, you can withstand the benefits of your employee listening program and help to maintain employee engagement and performance.
Leverage employee feedback for a successful business
Employee listening strategies are only effective when they lead to tangible results. Therefore, it is essential to gather insights and information from employees and then find ways to turn those findings into meaningful changes. By carefully analyzing insights and identifying high-priority issues, you can target issues within the organization that impact employees every day. The more visible the effect of leveraging employee feedback, the more likely it is for employees to participate in future research and discussions. This approach helps promote organizational change and promote a culture of open communication that ensures progress and success.
