Employee feedback is essential for growing a business in a positive direction. Employees are the ones doing the work and processes. As a result, their opinions and feedback are very valuable when adjusting processes to increase efficiency. Efficiency is directly linked to profitability because efficiency refers to the amount of work produced in the least amount of time.
How to Receive Employee Feedback
Sometimes it is difficult to accept criticism, even if it is constructive. But remember, taking employee feedback seriously has a lot of value. Here are three strategies for receiving feedback when you are in a managerial or supervisory position:
Don’t be defensive: Do not take constructive criticism personally. This is a hard one, and I completely struggle with this myself. “What do you mean it is wrong when I am always right?” If you start feeling defensive, it is best to pause and reflect without responding immediately. You can say something like, “I’ll have to look into it. Thank you for letting me know.” Keep in mind that you want employees to feel confident and secure when letting you know if there is a problem. If you are defensive when they come to you, they might not come to you again.
Affirm their valued feedback: It can be difficult for employees to give feedback to someone with more power or authority than them, so it is especially important to affirm their feedback when it comes from someone less powerful. You can say something like, “Thank you so much for coming to me with this. I appreciate you and what you have to say, so I want you to know that I’ll be looking into this.”
Follow up: Following up with an employee who gave you feedback lets them know that you value them and you have taken their feedback seriously. Follow-up also boosts company morale and increases workforce performance when employees see the boss looking for ways to improve processes within the business. Hastings and Meyers talk about how managers openly discuss their constructive criticism with all employees in their book No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention.
When to Accept Employee Feedback
Employee feedback should be accepted at all times. There should not be an open or closed sign on the door to improve processes and efficiency. Here are a few ways to accept employee feedback that may make it less uncomfortable for the employee:
Discuss employee feedback during the performance review: A 360 review is a performance review that encourages employees to give feedback to the person who is conducting the review. Feedback is usually given at the end of the review. Then the employee should fill out a section in their review packet with feedback regarding the company, department, and supervisors.
Conduct a survey: Surveys are great because they can be anonymous. This may be ideal for employees who do not feel comfortable giving feedback regarding their supervisors. Surveys can be available 24/7 on a company portal, emailed out during the performance review period, or available upon request (which would not be anonymous).
Receive feedback through email: Supervisors can encourage employees to give any kind of feedback through email. This is a great way to start a discussion if needed.
Receive in-person feedback: Supervisors can encourage employees to give feedback during meetings by adding a time for feedback in the meeting agenda. Supervisors can also have an open-door policy where employees can give feedback freely at any time through discussion.
Track & Organize Feedback
Maybe this is an afterthought, but what do you do with all that employee feedback? Memorize it all? I highly suggest organizing all employee feedback. Tracking and organizing feedback is important to pull information for monthly meetings and the year-end review.
You can track data through a spreadsheet or software. If you decide to gather feedback through a survey, most survey software will populate data into a spreadsheet for you. Otherwise, you can easily create your spreadsheet and customize it to fit your needs. You can include room such information as the type of feedback given, the date the feedback was given and received, the suggestion for fixing the problem, etc.
After an employee gives their feedback, it is important to follow up with them to let them know their input is valued (because it is). One way to ensure you follow up with them appropriately is to track and organize your data.
Employee feedback is extremely important in growing a business. As I mentioned above, your employees are the ones doing the work and going through the processes. So it is important to take their feedback seriously. Your employees may have a more efficient way to do something, and you would never know if you didn’t accept and appreciate their feedback.
Be sure to watch our YouTube video on Netflix’s workplace culture to see how they embrace candor to increase their workforce performance and company morale. Our CEO and Founder discusses all of the uncomfortable ways Netflix has changed its culture to create a better workplace for its team!
