6 Benefits of Workplace Feedback for Your Business
Are you listening to your employees? Workplace feedback can be a powerful tool to help you shape your business, if you’re listening that is.
Whether you run the HR department of a business or you’re the business owner, employees are the backbone of the company. They keep the business in operation throughout the year and are the reason behind the success garnered so far.
In order to continue that success and trajectory upward, you need to be willing to communicate regularly with the workforce. Their input is just as important as any of the top-level executives or stakeholders within the organization.
Companies that are willing to invest in employee feedback regularly have been found to see 14.9% lower turnover rates compared with companies that don’t give it. It pays to care about your employees beyond just the surface level.
What are the benefits of workplace feedback? How do you gather this feedback from employees efficiently? Why is employee feedback important for workplace performance? In this guide, you’ll get the answers to all those questions. More importantly, you’ll get a more accurate picture of your organization and how your workforce truly feels about the company they work for.
Table of contents
- What keeps employees happy in the workplace
- X benefits of workplace feedback for business
-
- It helps to retain employees and lowers turnover rates.
- Improves work performance of all staff.
- Gives workers the opportunity for professional development.
- Avoids workplace conflicts and creates a happier environment.
- Improves engagement in employees.
- Builds relationships and respect between employees and employers.
-
- How often should feedback be given?
- Tips to gather and provide feedback
What keeps employees happy in the workplace
It’s frustrating that some businesses don’t put in the effort to look after their employees because it’s fairly simple. Employees don’t ask for a lot and just a few improvements to an employee’s treatment in the workplace can do wonders for the retention of staff.
There are a number of ways to keep those smiles on staff members all year round. These include:
- Boosting work-life balance
- Being transparent with work-related changes
- Offering a generous benefits package
- Flexible and remote work
- Bonuses, pay rises, and promotions
Understanding your employees’ needs and what feedback they’d benefit from, is also helpful. With 75% of employees believing feedback is valuable, it’s not information that would go unappreciated.
6 benefits of workplace feedback for business
Workplace feedback will be valued by almost all of your workforce. It’s nice for staff members to feel like they matter and that they’re not just some number within the company. This is very much the case when it comes to bigger corporations. It’s important to ensure your employees don’t become lost in the organization.
1. It helps to retain employees and lowers turnover rates.
Retention of employees is one challenge that many businesses will face when it comes to running a company. The higher your turnover, the more damage you may be doing to the company as a result.
Recruitment after all can be costly, and time-consuming. If you’re constantly losing top talent, you could end up with a lower-quality output of work.
Employee feedback can help to retain employees who may feel they’re not being recognized or are underappreciated in the workplace. By providing valuable feedback to staff and welcoming it in return, they’ve got more reasons to stay than to go.
2. Improves work performance of all staff.
When you’re paying attention to your staff, it can be majorly helpful for their own work performance. Productivity in the workplace is important and higher levels of productivity will help draw in more revenue for the company.
Focusing on areas of improvement for staff members and understanding what training or development they need, will help them do a better job. That, for the business, is priceless when it comes to finding more success.
For managers within the organization, feedback from peers can provide insight into what the employees need to perform better. As such, they can make better business decisions that only benefit the company as a result.
3. Gives workers the opportunity for professional development.
While some employees are happy to simply coast along in the job with no real desire to climb the ranks, others may be itching to do so.
Those employees who consider themselves to be lifelong members of staff within the organization are the ones to hold onto. With workplace feedback, it can be useful to understand what development they would like to have in the business. As a result, it gives managers and heads of departments the opportunity to set up this career path for them, if doable.
After all, being able to promote staff internally is less time-consuming than having to externally interview for these positions. Many believe that professional development contributes to their job satisfaction and that is also a big influence on retention too.
4. Avoids workplace conflicts and creates a happier environment.
No one really wants conflict within their workplace, especially when it’s a daily environment that they’re immersed in for several hours a day.
Workplace conflicts can cause a lot of stress for some employees and can often be the cause of walkouts and HR complaints.
By gathering feedback or intel on developing workplace arguments, it can be knocked on the head before it goes too far. The headache of having to deal with disgruntled staff members is not good for the business or for the happiness of staff members. Quashing these problems before they have time to snowball, is crucial.
When a conflict is ongoing, make sure to involve the right members of staff, including HR. That way, everything is properly recorded. In the case of legal action and further problems, a record of activity can be useful.
5. Improves engagement in employees.
The correlation between feedback and employee engagement is palpable. For employees to be engaged within the workplace, it directly improves the productivity of the company.
Problems can be resolved much quicker with knowledge and that information can come from peers sharing their feedback. With employee feedback and managers having this feedback, they can show more appreciation for their staff. Their performance as individuals or as a team can be celebrated and acknowledged within the company.
Workplace feedback is not just for the individual for their own personal development, but for the organization as a whole.
6. Builds relationships and respect between employees and employers.
Seeing your staff as more than just a number or a money-maker for the company is smart. Building those relationships internally is key for consistent communication and top-tier work output.
By building relationships and having a workplace culture of equality, regardless of position, can really help to generate respect. That respect is what helps keep employees from leaving because what they have in the company is good. There’s no need for them to look for greener pastures because as far as they’re concerned – they’re on it.
How often should feedback be given
How often is often enough to give feedback? In order to build an effective feedback system, it’s good to be frequent. There may be managers who find onboarding their department onto a software for employee feedback, is more productive and easier to monitor.
Ideally, you’ll want to give out feedback to staff on a weekly basis at least. Some may have the capacity to give it out daily, while others may not have the time available to do so. However, any feedback regardless of the volume is good to provide.
Make sure that the employee feedback is relevant and valuable to that staff member. Assess the feedback before you give it to avoid repetitiveness or irrelevant information.
There are plenty of useful employee-centric software out there when it comes to generating feedback and receiving it. It’s worth doing some research and finding what system or tools work best for that manager or person responsible for that employee or team’s feedback.
Tips to gather and provide workplace feedback
Now that you understand the benefits of gathering and receiving feedback for the workplace, how does a business go about collecting it? There are many ways in which this feedback can be acquired and distributed.
Depending on the organization, it may be that one of these suggestions works perfectly and the others don’t. However, using a mixture of methods to gather and distribute feedback is useful to keep it interesting. Here are a few suggestions that might be helpful:
- An anonymous suggestion box
- 1-2-1 meetings
- End-of-year feedback forms and surveys
- Team building and away days
- Company workforce meetings and events
The delivery of feedback can be almost as important as the feedback itself. It’s worthwhile having a discussion with fellow managers or your seniors, to understand what works best. They may feel there are other ways not mentioned above, that would be useful for collecting and delivering feedback.
Make workplace feedback a priority for your business
Understanding what employee feedback is currently being provided by senior staff and heads of departments will help identify what’s needed. Making workplace feedback a priority is a must for any business that wants to show more care and attention to its employees this year and beyond.
