8 Smart reasons to use Employee Feedback to make big changes in your business.

If you've ever questioned the value of gathering employee feedback via a survey, it might be because you aren't making best use of the data and feedback. Used well, this insight can inform, improve and grow your business.

Here we look at some of the smart ways you can use the insight in your business, to drive improvement and growth. By the end of the read, we hope to have converted you to a raving survey fan! And if you already have feedback and you're doing nothing with it, we hope we inspire you to re-examine it and how it can help improve your business.

1. Taking Action

Gathering employee feedback, then doing nothing with it can be really damaging. You have effectively ignored the feedback and wasted your team's time, which can negatively impact the trust you have with your team. The smartest thing you can do with the feedback is take action!

If you've got lots of feedback and areas to tackle from your latest survey then you might need to prioritise. Look out for key themes, repeat concerns and also some quick wins. Let your team know the top 3 to 5 things you intend to work on and then go and get them done.

2. Supporting a Business Case 

Don't overlook your employee engagement insight as evidence for your business case. If there are themes in your feedback they can be powerful to validate and support your arguments. 

Let’s consider that you were thinking of introducing a new piece of software to your business. Have you had direct feedback that there is a problem to solve in the first place? Or that this would make their working lives easier? Asking these questions first can help mitigate some costly mistakes further down the road. 

3. Company Communications

Planning a company update? Again take a look at the feedback you’ve obtained. Is there anything in your survey feedback that your team would like to hear about? 

Have a look where your lowest scores were, or any areas that were mentioned in written feedback. These are the areas that are important to your team and you can shape really impactful communication sessions around exactly what they want to hear. Similarly talk about success and the strengths of your team. A shot of positivity goes a long way.

4. Process improvement

Broken and inefficient processes can have a noticeable impact on employee engagement. Often we see employees sharing ideas and improvements via our engagement surveys, which shouldn't be overlooked. If your customer service team is telling you via their feedback that they are frustrated, there are wins to be had by addressing their concerns, using the feedback they've already given you. 

There’s a clear link between employee feedback scores and customer satisfaction scores. If your employees are happy and performing exceptionally, then your customers will be happy too. The answers to unlocking both are likely to be in your survey feedback. 

5. Investing in skills

Often there are good indications in a survey, about training needs for leaders. Use the data and the feedback to look at what the team is telling you about it’s leadership. Are there key themes where you can place your investment in their skills? 

Return on investment when it comes to learning and development spend is important, so it makes sense to use feedback you already have to identify the biggest gaps and get the most from your training budget.

6. Recruitment

One of the things we often talk about with our customers is the "story" behind a survey. What are your team telling you about what it's like to work in the business? What are your strengths and what does the team really enjoy about working there? 

This is fantastic information to share during a recruitment process. "Our team has recently told us this… lots of our team really enjoy this... we're currently focusing on this.... as it's an area we'd like to get better at" . If you want to give candidates a good flavour of what it's like to work in your business, this is great information to repurpose.

7. Improving Your Induction Process

Being a new starter in a business can be nerve-racking. No matter how positive the person is, they will be constantly assessing their new employer through the entire process. The good things will be expected, the bad will be remembered!  

Here you’re looking for feedback such as gaps in information, gaps in knowledge and cracks in process. If you can address these early in an employee’s journey with you, then you can prevent them from becoming bigger issues further down the line. 

8. Leavers 

Last but not least, are you marrying up the data you get from your engagement surveys, with the insight you get from your exit interviews? Are there common themes? Are there any areas for improvement that might be impacting on employee engagement and causing people to leave? 

If so, you might need to prioritise these actions or else it can become a much bigger problem in your business. Don't overlook the insight that bringing these two areas of feedback together can bring.

Why use Space HR?

The Space HR platform uses WhatsApp to quickly and easily gain feedback and insight. We've got a great way to capture written feedback from your teams too, so it isn't just data - your team can tell you directly what's on their mind.  We can help you create a great employee engagement process that builds constant value in your team.

Blog by Space HR