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Do You Know What Your Employees are Thinking?
Proven Techniques for Gathering Employee Feedback

Ginger Brunner, HR Professional

When was the last time you were asked to fill in a comment card or complete an online survey? Many businesses invest valuable time and resources to find out what their customers are thinking, but what about their internal customers, their employees?

It's no secret! In addition to competing for market share, employers are now competing to recruit quality employees.  By encouraging and acting on employee feedback, businesses can stand out from the competition, positively impact the bottom line AND not only attract, but retain top performers.

Here are a few methods to help you find out what your employees are thinking:

Ask them!  Sound too easy? When was the last time you had a one-on-one conversation with each of your employees? Making time to build relationships with employees will enable you to gain important information (that you may not otherwise have access to) and make them feel that they are a valued member of the team.

Be your own employee Roll up your sleeves, put on a uniform and experience the company's policies, procedures, products and/or services as a front-line employee for a day. You will be amazed by what you learn about your business! Have some fun with it and encourage other managers to join in.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys Employee Satisfaction surveys can be an effective way of measuring overall employee satisfaction as well as identify areas for improvement, if they are facilitated correctly. Using a confidential approach and an outside, unbiased third party contractor to collect and report the results can go a long way towards making employees feel safe enough to provide meaningful information.

Focus Groups Cross-functional focus groups are an effective way of encouraging employee engagement and feedback. For example: Use employee focus groups to resolve an issue or develop an action plan to follow up on the results of that Employee Satisfaction survey.

Open Door policy Having an Open Door policy means more than just opening a door and expecting employees to walk through. It involves establishing and fostering a workplace culture in which employees feel safe to bring forth suggestions, ideas and/or concerns, with the confidence that their opinions matter.

No matter what method you use to find out what your employees are thinking, be prepared to listen to what they are saying and whenever possible, act on their suggestions. By doing so, you can create an engaging workplace environment where employees will not only want to work and contribute, but more importantly stay.
 

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