Empower your workforce: Take action on frontline employee feedback

Over the past few years we’ve all noticed a shift in the labor market. It used to be that employers held all the power, but now employees are taking the reins, forcing companies to listen to their needs. If they don’t, workers are quitting and looking for organizations that will.

So it’s surprising that in a recent WorkStep study we found 41% of respondents said management never seeks feedback. And for companies that do ask for employee feedback, 70% of their frontline workers feel that their voices are not being heard.

This means companies are not taking action on the feedback they receive from their workforce. Quite frankly, what’s the point of gathering these insights if there is no plan in place to do anything with it?

Well, there may be a few reasons companies hesitate to act on feedback.

Whether they’re not collecting the right feedback, or don’t know what actions to take to effectively address the issues, leadership could be paralyzed at this stage without any guidance.

Not all employee feedback is equal

Each organization needs a way to gather feedback in real-time, along key milestones, and at a frequent cadence. Quarterly or annual surveys don’t help companies take effective action to reduce turnover.

Organizations also have to be mindful of the types of questions they send when checking in. It’s important to ask questions with the opportunity to provide comments, not just multiple choice.

If you only provide multiple choice options, then leadership has to make assumptions about how their employees will respond in order to create the answers. This doesn’t help companies gather the true sentiments of their employees. Having space where workers can expand on their answer helps identify true pain points.

Another way to ensure you’re gathering unfiltered feedback is allowing the answers to be submitted anonymously. This eliminates the fear that there will be negative consequences if they leave unfavorable feedback.

To act or not to act?

How are you determining what employee feedback to take action on? It’s not possible to act on every individual’s input, but being able to analyze the data to see trends or to identify critical feedback that needs immediate action is important.

A recent study found fewer than 1 in 4 employees feels strongly that their company cares about their well-being.

That’s why it’s essential that leaders make it a priority to address feedback that comes in with complaints about discrimination, harassment, safety concerns, etc. immediately. This will not only help retain the worker who revealed the problem, but also position the company as an employer who cares about the well being of their workforce. But more importantly, it is critical that workers take the right action to rectify the problem.

But much of the feedback being collected won’t require individual attention, but instead be part of a larger theme that is echoed across the organization or a department. This is where HR and operation teams need to develop a strategy to implement an action approach.

How to action on employee feedback

In order to successfully execute change, a company needs to establish a clear understanding of who in the organization is responsible for taking action on feedback and what that process flow looks like for implementing this change.

It also needs to be determined who will gather metrics to measure the success of these initiatives, how frequently, and who should receive this report. It’s unlikely a company will continue to support the costs associated with making changes if they are not able to see the ROI.

Transparency and employee communication is key

Companies may be taking action, but it may be lost on their employees that this action is directly linked to their feedback. Offering your workforce transparency about the feedback that is coming in and what their leadership is doing to act on it will help employees feel valued and heard.

This will not only boost overall morale, but also encourage more engagement. If frontline workers know their feedback is actually causing real change that directly impacts them, you can bet they will continue or begin to provide it. In turn, you’ll notice a huge decrease in turnover.

WorkStep can guide the way to impactful change

We know that’s a lot for an organization to execute all on their own. That’s where WorkStep comes in. We provide a solution to gather the right kind of feedback, automatically analyze the data, and suggest actions to take based on themes or critical insights. And all in one central repository that can be accessed company-wide.