I believe offering employees a voice in the organization improves morale, satisfaction and retention, as well as reducing turnover. I also believe it can help to improve employee performance and eliminate performance gaps, allowing the organization to take advantage of all the opportunities available to them.
Employees are more likely to buy-in to company initiatives if they feel like they’re full partners in the organization.
In a perfect world, employers would know what each employee needs to effectively do their job, but unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world. It’s not possible for companies to meet the needs of employees without asking them for feedback, just the same as they would with customers.
And who better to ask about processes, procedures, customers and competition than those who actually do the work of the organization?
Common Mistakes
There are two mistakes I’ve seen more commonly than any others that employers make with employee feedback.
- Not Asking Employees for Feedback—Many organizations feel that their employees don’t know the answers to the questions they have, or the company doesn’t want to share that authority or responsibility with employees. The company might even be arrogant enough to think that they have all the answers.
So what they do is ignore employees and not request feedback
- Reacting Poorly to the Feedback—I’ve seen two kinds of inappropriate reactions from companies. The first is they react adversely and punish employees, or retaliate against them in some way for sharing feedback that’s not positive or that didn’t match the management’s view. Managers may be angry or even lash out at employees who provided the negative feedback.
Leaders need to resist any temptation that they might have to lash out at employees who provide feedback that may not be favorable to the company.
The other reaction I’ve seen is, after asking for feedback, the company doesn’t do anything with it. They’ll simply gather the information and do nothing. The message they send to employees when they do this is that the company is going to “check off the box” on their to-do list, but not do anything to improve things.
In my next Insight, I’ll explain the steps employers need to take to effectively utilize employee feedback.
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