Creating a positive, dynamic, and engaging workplace inevitably leads to decreased rates of employee turnover, increased productivity, and a generally more healthy and harmonious work environment. As managers, it’s our responsibility to ensure that we’re taking advantage of every possible opportunity there is to improve our workplace cultures. In order to achieve this, we must engage our employees in an ongoing dialogue around how their experience at work might be improved.
Understanding how to properly collect feedback from employees, however, is a common challenge for team leaders. With that in mind, this post will explore some of the best strategies that employers can use to approach and engage with their employees more effectively.
Acting on the tips outlined below will give you a much better chance of collecting honest feedback from your team, which can then be used to make improvements in your workplace:
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Make Time For Facetime –
In an increasingly digitalized and impersonal world, it can be all too easy to conduct the majority of your interactions with your employees through a screen. This may feel easy in the short-term, but it can produce long-term alienation and resentment amongst your employees. Conversely, face-to-face interactions can go a long way when you’re trying to collect constructive feedback from your team. Daily, in-person scrums, for example, have the power to demonstrate that you, as a manager, take a genuine interest in your team’s input and their wellbeing.
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Pay Attention to Body Language –
Now and then, an employee will verbally report to his or her manager that they’re feeling engaged and empowered in their work, but their nonverbal clues will tell a different story. If you see your employees slouching in their chairs, averting their gazes from you, or only leaving their desks to go to the bathroom or the break room, that could be a sign that there’s a need for change.
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Practice Accountability –
No manager likes hearing that something they did (or perhaps didn’t do) has created problems in their workplace. As leaders, however, we must own responsibility when we’re receiving feedback from our employees. As soon as we can own up to our past mistakes or oversights, we can begin to initiate a productive and honest discussion about how they might be remedied moving forward.
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Schedule Regular Performance Review Meetings –
One-on-one performance review meetings are a great opportunity for managers to glean insights from their employees about how life at work could be improved while simultaneously showing employees that their concerns are being heard. The important thing here is to ensure that these meetings do not revolve strictly around you (the manager), providing feedback to your employees about their performance at work. You should also make time for your employees to tell you about any challenges that they’re encountering in their work and whether or not they have the tools to meet those challenges. Once that’s been established, the two of you will be able to collaboratively discuss what might really be done to improve day-to-day life at the workplace.
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