How do you communicate and follow up with employees after feedback surveys?

It's easy to fall into the trap of sharing a lot of actions that you intend to do, and then not getting around to all of them. I've found that it's better to commit to a smaller number of actions that you can 100% follow through on, than over-promise and under-deliver. It's also important to be explicit about the feedback you've received that you do not intend to act on. This candor and straightforwardness goes a long way to building trust.

It's important to co-create the actions with your employees so that they feel part of the process, engaged and included. Too often well-meaning employee engagement surveys end up disengaging people when they are not involved in brainstorming, problem-solving and designing an action plan. This is a more collaborative, inclusive approach to tap into the wisdom of your employees!

At Glint, we've found that managers having conversations with their employees and collaboratively identifying 1 thing to focus on in the short term is the most impactful way to take "one step forward." What I love about this approach is that managers don't have to come to this conversation with all the answers. And employees are able to more effectively contribute in a way that lets them feel heard. Team based conversations and identification of 1 action item also helps get to action quickly and avoid analysis paralysis.

Best practices right here. In my experience too many employers let too much time elapse between taking the survey and sharing results. Some don’t even share results. Our best clients create buzz around the surveys and the employees are actively engaged in addressing issues and celebrating results.

When I first became CEO, I would do the requisite “listening tours”. I would then fly home with a notepad FULL of stuff to fix and go into our next leadership mtg with a spreadsheet a mile long. Guess what? Most stuff never got fixed that way. This all changed one trip when instead of listening and logging their issue, I coached the employees. I asked them questions like “Who do you think needs to come together to solve this?” And then I’d work through enabling them to take the lead (sometimes helping knock down barriers for them, e.g. I’d offer to send a note to our CTO to ensure he attended THEIR meeting.) Not only did more things get done, I would get notes telling me how excited the “enabled” employees were to be leading things!

I’ve found that helping leaders at all levels, be able to align and effectively communicate the results they’ve taken in direct response to employee feedback and insights, is key. Part of this includes specifics tools to help managers share the tangible actions they’ve taken in direct response to employee feedback, and to celebrate the impact of those actions together, in an ongoing basis throughout the year. This helps to solidify and reinforce the message that every voice matters, and that feedback does in fact impact and result in efforts to make the organization work better together. Plus all teams benefit from celebrating their collective wins, in a way that brings people together for fun and enhances esprit de corps??

Look for key ‘hot spots’ at an organisation-wide level. For example, results from questions about role ambiguity and role overload combined can indicate pockets where colleagues are in stress or strain. These are worth spending time on to understand better and consider what support is needed for colleagues.

When collecting data and listening to employees, it's important to operate in an agile manner (adapting your thinking and pivoting when necessary based on new information). For instance, if your organization typically does quarterly surveys and you've found that employees' participation is decreasing or it's tough to see meaningful changes in a quarterly period, it's okay to pivot and move to a biannual approach.

While I wholeheartedly agree that employee engagement surveys are an important tool in an organization, it is important to remember that these surveys are a "snapshot in time" and might not always be reflective of the culture. As an example, if I survey my employees immediately after we award bonuses the results might be vastly different than if we survey right after a reduction in force. I have seen executives overreact to results without looking at the ENTIRE picture. Survey results, and corresponding actions, should be taken as a result of all available information including surveys, focus groups, follow up conversations and any other methods possible for collecting data. Only then can we be certain that our actions truly meet needs.