The last thing any organization wants is for its best employees to leave. But in companies where employees don’t feel supported or heard, retention and engagement can become big problems. That’s why employee feedback surveys are essential components of every company’s internal workings. These powerful tools can provide honest feedback that leads to cultural changes and organizational strategies that can help companies keep pace with the competition—and keep their strongest employees.
Read on to discover 11 vital ways that employee feedback surveys can impact workplace environments!
1. Improve Workplace Engagement
When an employee receives an email directing them to fill out a survey, that’s a clear indication to them that they’re valued. Surveys allow employees to offer feedback that can help shape changes in the company. Especially if survey results are shared within the organization, and the organization takes actionable steps to put that feedback to work, employees will feel more engaged. Engagement can translate to stronger productivity and an eagerness to support the company’s mission.
2. Reduce Employee Churn
When an employee decides to leave an organization, it can disrupt productivity quickly. And if lots of employees are spending their time looking for exit strategies, that can signal a problem for an organization. Fortunately, employee feedback surveys can make a positive impact on employee retention.
That’s because surveys enable employees to share their concerns anonymously, which can help prompt greater transparency in the responses. Consequently, leadership within the organization can intervene if they notice trends that point toward burnout and mismanagement. Maybe an employee feels like they lack growth opportunities.
Or perhaps their workload has increased while their pay has flatlined. When surveys reveal patterns, companies can respond to concerns and help work toward solutions that will help employees want to stay.
3. Identify Onboarding Gaps
Are new employees ready to hit the ground running? Survey results may point to some flaws within your onboarding strategy that you’ll need to address. For instance, onboarding might be too quick, or employees might prefer working with an assigned mentor.
Survey results can yield suggestions that can improve onboarding programs. Similarly, exit surveys can reveal reasons that employees leave. Seeing recurring sentiments can help leaders focus on improvements that might elevate the employee experience.
4. Enhance Organizational Safety
Everyone wants to feel safe at work. And in some fields, like healthcare, safety protocols impact every aspect of day-to-day work. And given the fast pace of work life in healthcare facilities, staff on the front lines are noticing areas of weakness more quickly than individuals in leadership positions might. As a result, surveys soliciting feedback on safety and operational procedures are critical for these facilities to provide the best services to patients—and maintain a happy, healthy staff.
Breakdowns in communication, poor or absent leadership, and a lack of clarity about internal procedures can hinder patient outcomes. Likewise, high workloads, breakdowns during shift changes, and unclear directions can lead to lapses in care. Healthcare organizations that administer surveys and respond to suggestions can see measurable improvements in patient care and staff well-being. Offering follow-up summaries and conversations with staff about patient safety culture solutions can help foster a better workplace environment where every voice matters.
5. Build Better Accountability
Sometimes feedback can be messy and even seem insulting. But getting information about job performance or company culture can help leaders grow. They need to know if they’re communicating well and engaging employees with an approachable management style.
Leaders also need to know if certain behaviors or tendencies are off-putting, or even driving employees away. Learning the hard truth can help strengthen leadership effectiveness, which is an essential adjustment if leaders are hoping to grow their companies and hire the best talent.
6. Reveal Issues with Company Culture
Every organization should have a mission statement indicating what it stands for. But even the most well-intentioned mission statements can fade into the background as a company operates each day.
Sometimes, a gut check for a company can be beneficial. Feedback may expose gaps between values contained within the mission statement and employees’ lived experiences, for example. A company may find that employees think politics plays too big a role in determining promotions.
The company may indicate it values diversity, but recent new hires may not reflect that stated preference. Getting insights that may be hard to swallow can lead to necessary changes that create better alignment between indicated values and actual company culture.
7. Serve as a Compliance Tool
In heavily regulated industries, surveys can help ensure compliance. They can target safety issues or company conduct. And, perhaps more importantly, they can alert company leadership to gaps in compliance.
Companies don’t want to be penalized and see their reputation plummet thanks to a compliance problem. With surveys in play, employees can express concerns before they snowball into big problems.
8. Inform Workplace Strategies
Companies recognize the value of using data to make decisions. With access to quantitative and qualitative data from surveys, today’s leadership teams and HR departments are poised to make better decisions to support the organization. Survey results may indicate that employees feel like they need more professional development opportunities or stronger internal recognition systems, for instance. Feedback data can help direct future decisions in these areas.
9. Help Set Benchmarks
What are the standards for excellence in your industry? Survey data can help determine if you’re meeting those benchmarks, or it can help you set benchmarks. Developing a cycle of continuous improvement can show employees that you’re constantly aspiring to be better. And establishing benchmarks creates measurable goals.
10. Spark Innovation
Companies want their employees to complete assigned responsibilities. But they want them to feel spurred toward greatness, too, reaching for creative solutions to streamline internal workflows or expand business prospects. Surveys can spur this kind of thinking.
While most survey questions may provide a set of answer choices, not all questions must be structured that way. Including open-ended prompts can give employees a chance to share ideas related to improvements to services and products.
11. Support Inclusive Efforts
Not all employee groups will experience the workplace in the same way. Understanding how different groups feel treated can spotlight areas where improvements, like cultural or sensitivity training, are needed. For companies that pride themselves on welcoming everyone, attending to concerns in this area is critical.
Building a Better Workplace through Feedback
Organizations need all the help they can get when it comes to understanding how to make their workforce and workplace better. Employee feedback surveys are instrumental in helping companies identify challenges as well as strengths. And when companies are transparent about results and committed to taking action, their employees will notice.
In a competitive marketplace, great talent is always in demand. If companies want to keep their best employees, they’ll need to keep the feedback loop open and work toward a better employee culture.
Guest writer
