Tips for Collecting Better Employee Feedback

We’ve all heard how happy employees are more productive—that they stay longer at their jobs, thereby reducing hiring costs, and that they take fewer sick days. We also know that they can propel company-wide productivity and sales.

But when it comes to actually finding out if their employees are happy, organizations have a hard time. And the issue gets worse the larger the company grows.

Sure, most companies evaluate their employees. But knowing how to collect employee feedback is a completely different game.

Collecting employee feedback the right way needs to be systematic—built into your organizational processes in a way that makes every employee feel like they have a voice.

Here are a few tips to become a feedback-collecting machine, from utilizing one-on-one meetings to employee engagement surveys, without breaking the bank or taking up too much time.

1. Use the Employee Suggestion Box

Employee suggestion boxes are old school. No question about it. But they’re still a tried-and-true way to anonymously collect feedback from employees, particularly if you’re looking to make small, actionable changes that add up.

Anonymity itself is important for employee feedback. Some employees could face embarrassment or, even worse, retribution if what they say is undisguised.

And if you want to bring your suggestion box into the 21st century, you have options.

One way is to create a simple, anonymous survey that employees can fill out at their leisure. You can customize it any way you like, but the foundation of a good suggestion form includes two important questions: “What is your suggestion?” and “What benefit would your suggestion bring?”

By keeping your questions relatively open, you can start gathering an array of feedback, ranging from office decor improvements to high-level strategy. But you won’t know unless you build the suggestion box form.

2. Distribute In-Depth Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Sometimes it’s helpful to get feedback on very specific areas of the company, like processes and procedures, workplace environment, perks, and anything else that concerns your team.

But whereas the anonymous feedback form mentioned above as a suggestion tool is more qualitative, an employee satisfaction survey should be more quantitative.

Assign number and scale ratings to your questions to glean broader insights into what your employees think about specific issues. For example, say you survey a dozen employees and one of the questions asks them to rate the dress code on a level of one to 10. If you’re averaging a 3.8 out of 10, you now have the data to make improvements.

If you need more inspiration, check out our top 30 employee engagement survey question ideas.

Get Employee Feedback from New Hires

Most employees (70%) know whether they’ll stay with your company within a month of starting. While you might not feel like that’s enough time to get to know the ins and outs of your company, it is enough time to get an impression.

Sometimes, people new to a role or company can spot things you might not. While you might not need their feedback on a specific company process or system they haven’t used yet, you’ll definitely want to know what they think of your onboarding process.

Getting feedback on the onboarding experience can help you measure onboarding success, understand what employees feel was lacking, and give you the tools to improve it.

3. Conduct One-on-One Meetings

Meeting individually with your employees can prevent a lot of problems. It’s the best way to build rapport with employees and to give constructive feedback.

One-on-one meetings are also one of the best ways to receive employee feedback. To get even better feedback, keep things conversational. If you’re in person, you might consider holding your one-on-one meetings while going for a walk. It can ease tension and will elicit better conversation and, ultimately, better feedback.

However you hold your meetings (in person, remotely, or a mix of both), be sure to ask about how employees feel, how they think the company and culture could improve, and what would make them more satisfied at work.

4. Hold Regular All-Hands Meetings

All-hands meetings aren’t just a terrific way to disseminate company information. They’re also great forums to discuss employee suggestions.Some people are more comfortable discussing improvements in a group setting where colleagues can support their suggestions.

All-hands meetings are a must if specific suggestions are agreed on by groups of employees. The best way to know this ahead of time is to send out pre-meeting surveys to help you build a focused meeting agenda.

5. Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are one of the key ways to receive quality feedback from employees. These one-on-one meetings typically take place at regular intervals and should facilitate discussions about their achievements, the things they feel could improve, and any future goals they might have.

Usually, performance reviews will have a set structure that helps participants to prepare for their review and think of any topics they want to discuss. While opinions on the business might come up naturally, including an additional question can give your employee time to think of an accurate, more articulate, answer.

You might get more out of performance reviews if you treat the review as drawing a line in the sand. It can act as a summary of past experiences and allow both of you to start afresh next year, giving them the chance to give honest feedback.

6. Exit Interviews

It’s a common trope that employees reveal their true feelings once they have another job to go to. While there may be a grain of truth to that, you can also use the unique circumstances of an exit interview to collect honest feedback from employees.

Ask open-ended questions that allow people to elaborate, discuss the reasons they chose to leave, and what (if anything) could have helped them stay. If you have a hunch about things that aren’t working, this is a great opportunity to ask what they think. Try to avoid criticism or defensiveness and try to learn from the experiences they share.

7. Online reviews

Today, you can find multiple sites that collect and share anonymous feedback and workplace reviews from current and former employees. Employees can sign up, declare their place of work, their department or role, and share how they really feel.

While you can’t verify these reviews—or quantify them as you would an in-house employee satisfaction survey—they can offer some insight into trends in employee opinions, good or bad.

Make Feedback Collection a Routine

Don’t wait until annual reviews or exit interviews to learn about obvious areas to improve your company. Take the initiative and look for ways to keep feedback rolling in to build a more comprehensive picture of what your employees are thinking.

By implementing these simple, affordable tips for gathering feedback from employees, your company will have a chance to be more productive, fun, and profitable.