Project managers often see the organization from a bird’s eye view.
While this gives them a real-time presence and knowledge of the happenings in the organization, they lack the know-how that comes with execution.
Their responsibilities often cover assigning tasks, allocating resources, and setting strategies but little practical expertise on the day-to-day running of the business.
Employees are at the heart of all business processes and see the organization from the worm’s eye view.
They have a practical and direct relationship with other staff and customers. They interact with clients and have the customer’s unique perspective.
This unique lens makes employees privy to information not readily visible to managers. Employees’ direct access to customers and being in the center of the business processes qualify them to make recommendations that promote the company’s success.
However, this is only possible when managers have created the right environment.
It is easier to give positive feedback and quite daunting to give negative feedback. Most often than not, negative feedback offers the best opportunities for growth and innovation.
For employees to be open to offering suggestions, ideas, and negative feedback, managers need to cultivate open communication in the workplace. Here are a few ways to get employees’ feedback.
1. Team Meetings
Team meetings are a comfortable setting to get open and honest employee feedback, compared to a one-on-one meeting with the manager, which could be nerve-racking.
Employees are more relaxed and feel empowered to contribute in a group setting with the familiar faces of colleagues. Team meetings offer valuable insight that shapes future decision-making processes when properly coordinated.
Team meetings help keep everyone updated on the latest happening in the organization. That way, everyone knows what is expected, and miscommunication is reduced.
Regular team meetings improve transparency and eliminate ambiguity, which causes stress. Constant meetings provide an avenue for constructive feedback, which helps improve employees’ confidence.
Employees have a unique opportunity to nurture supportive relationships and bond through team meetings. It provides a unique opportunity for collaboration between managers and staff. Managers can share challenging problems to which employees might have solutions and vice versa.
2. Employee Surveys
An employee survey is a questionnaire that provides insight into reasons for motivation, demotivation, or work culture.
When carefully designed, employee surveys are used to analyze job satisfaction, business processes, and employee experience. Managers often use employee surveys to get anonymous feedback about internal operations.
Employee survey allows a business to focus on aspects of the organization that needs revamping.
Before distributing a survey, you need to identify the goals and what indicators to measure. Ensure the questions are short, specific, and unbiased. When employee performance is evaluated, you can take measures to improve productivity.
The best-designed surveys tackle one question at a time, avoid ambiguity, and are arranged logically. Ensure to find the right balance between open and closed-ended questions depending on the data outcome you expect.
You want to make sure that the survey is well designed and carries the brand logo and color to create an affinity with employees. Because of the sensitivity of the information revealed through surveys, it is preferable to collect it anonymously.
3. Unified Channels
Many businesses have untapped data sitting beneath their communication system. When analyzed, this data can provide insights and improve business intelligence.
While executing their daily tasks—sending emails, corresponding with clients, communicating among colleagues—they have left data cues in their tracks. A unified communications system will discover, interpret, and reveal trends and patterns to improve business processes.
Unified communications analytics reveals the platforms used the most among your communication tools. The analytics also clarify the level of engagement experienced across the organization.
You also get an insight into the predictive analysis and a performance evaluation as it could be a challenge for large organizations to track communications across different locations.
Unified communications can help you track all incoming calls and use a phone number across multiple devices through shared phone lines. So wherever you are, you can pick up incoming calls on any phone.
Shared lines make it possible for any available employee to pick calls from different locations with any of the shared phone lines improving customer experience.
4. Act on Suggestions
It is not enough to only collect employee feedback. Employees observe to see if their suggestions are being worked on, which can affect future responses. It is important to review the information collected and implement it appropriately.
A review aims to improve employees’ professional development and the company’s culture. While working on solutions that implement feedback, you’d want to focus on authenticity and alignment.
When you’re constructive in your approach, it becomes easy for employees to trust you subsequently.
