There’s a secret to building a stronger employee experience that enables you to retain your workforce: employee feedback. Think about it. If you want to know how to improve the employee experience and keep people from jumping ship, who can provide better guidance than your own employees?
Here are eight ways to collect employee feedback, so you know what it will take to improve your employee experience and boost retention:
Actively soliciting input from employees is a sign of strong leadership. Feedback presents opportunities to improve, innovate and connect. Yet many managers avoid seeking feedback or struggle to get quality responses. Employees may be hesitant to share openly. With the right approach, though, you can create an environment where people feel safe providing honest opinions and insights.
Here are 10 tips for collecting meaningful employee feedback:
1. Build a Foundation of Trust
Employees will only share authentic feedback if they trust you. Take time to nurture mutual respect and psychological safety on your team Be approachable and let people know you value their perspectives Follow through reliably when team members share ideas or concerns. Making feedback a priority and consistently demonstrating you can be trusted with input sets the stage for openness.
2. Ask Open-Ended Questions
Closed yes/no questions will not get you detailed feedback Instead, ask open-ended questions that encourage sharing For example, “What improvements would help your day-to-day work?” or “How could we better serve our customers?” Use neutral, non-judgmental language. And ask follow-up questions to draw out more details. The goal is to stimulate an honest two-way conversation, not a superficial questionnaire.
3. Offer Anonymous Surveys
Even in a trusting environment, some may hesitate to share critical opinions publicly. Provide anonymous feedback channels like anonymous surveys occasionally. This gives everyone a chance to share freely without fear of judgment. Just be sure to also provide opportunities for two-way dialogue. Anonymous feedback alone misses the depth of face-to-face conversations.
4. Schedule Regular 1-on-1s
Don’t limit feedback to once-a-year reviews. You need an ongoing pulse on how employees feel. Regularly scheduled 1-on-1 meetings are ideal for soliciting ongoing feedback in a casual way. Simply ask “Do you have any suggestions for improving how our team works?” Employee needs evolve, so check in often.
5. Observe Body Language and Tone
Listen not just to the words people say, but how they say it. Note body language, energy levels, and overall vibe when interacting with you and each other. Low energy or lack of eye contact can signal discontentment. This non-verbal feedback is invaluable for reading the true health of your team. Create space for people to share openly and observe carefully.
6. Respond Constructively
Receiving feedback requires vulnerability. Employees need to see their input is valued and taken seriously. When people raise concerns, thank them for sharing and avoid being defensive. Discuss how their feedback can translate into change. Set follow-up meetings to continue the dialogue. Following up consistently builds trust that all voices matter.
7. Develop Action Plans
Don’t let feedback sit idle. To sustain a feedback rich culture, input must spark real change. After collecting feedback, summarize key themes and insights. Discuss these with your team and ask for ideas to address concerns. Translate top issues into action plans with owners and timelines. Closing the loop this way incentivizes future participation.
8. Conduct Exit Interviews
Valuable feedback walks out the door every time an employee leaves. Exit interviews capture this insight before it’s gone. Learn why high performers choose to leave and what needs improvement. Ask about their overall experience and what advice they have for the future. Exit interview best practices include using a neutral party to conduct the discussion, asking open-ended questions, and maintaining confidentiality. This protects the departing employee so they can be fully transparent.
9. Provide Anonymous Hotlines
Even with an open culture around feedback, some may not feel comfortable raising sensitive concerns directly. Offering an anonymous ethics or compliance hotline allows people to safely report issues like harassment or dangerous working conditions. Publicize the hotline and how concerns get reviewed. While anonymity limits follow-up, it facilitates surfacing problems that may otherwise stay hidden.
10. Model the Change You Expect
As a leader, demonstrating receptiveness to feedback yourself is powerful. Admit mistakes readily and thank team members for pointing them out. If an employee critiques your approach, thank them for the courage to share their perspective. Model learning from criticism with grace and humility. This vulnerability inspires others to take risks giving input.
Making employee feedback a priority requires dedication, courage and humility. Keeping a learning mindset takes work when feedback questions your decisions or style. But embracing criticism as an opportunity for growth unlocks innovation and strengthens company culture. By actively seeking input and modeling graceful acceptance, leaders set the foundation for an engaged, fulfilled team.
Employee suggestion box
In a world of digital innovation, an old-fashioned employee suggestion box still has an important place. Employees could be wary of sharing honest feedback through other means, for fear of retaliation. A suggestion box allows them to leave anonymous feedback without a digital footprint.
Put the box somewhere that’s easily accessible, but not where people tend to gather. For instance, employees could slip their feedback into a box at the front desk on their way home, but may feel uncomfortable if the box were in a heavily used break room.
An exit interview is essentially your last opportunity to collect employee feedback before it makes its way onto employer review sites. Employees may have one primary reason for leaving—such as an opportunity for career growth—but many other factors could be contributing to their decision to leave. Find out what those are. Directly ask departing employees what they thought about their manager, compensation, benefits, team dynamics, growth opportunities, and anything else you’re curious to know.
Employee engagement surveys
Annual—or even biannual or quarterly—employee engagement surveys are a great way to collect large amounts of employee feedback at once. These are often quite comprehensive, focusing on anything and everything that could be impacting employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention.
Improve your completion rates by communicating with your employees around why you’re conducting the survey, and ensuring that feedback is anonymous. Sharing the results and acting on feedback can ensure that future surveys are well received too.
Pulse surveys are much shorter and faster to complete than employee engagement surveys, and can be done more frequently. Some companies will conduct weekly Pulse surveys with 1-3 questions, while others may conduct them monthly with 4-5 questions.
This can be a great opportunity to get a regular pulse on employee satisfaction, and hear timely feedback. An employee Net Promoter Score is an easy way to begin. Simply ask, “On a scale of 1-10, how likely is it that you would recommend working at [Company] to a friend or family member?” Ask the employee to choose a number between 1-10, then leave a comment box below asking “Why did you give us that rating?” This open-ended question can provide many useful pieces of feedback in near real-time, rather than waiting to hear them after engagement surveys.
Pulse surveys can also be used to track progress on key initiatives. For instance, if you’ve been addressing feedback about lack of career advancement, use your Pulse surveys to see if your initiatives have been hitting the mark or if there’s more work to be done.
Stay interviews are a great way to collect feedback from your top performers, so you can better retain them. Their managers should sit down with them to learn what they like most and least about their jobs, what keeps them at your company, and what would entice them to consider other opportunities.
The results of these interviews can be used to create “stay plans” for your top performers. They should outline opportunities for training and advancement, and address any other feedback discussed. For instance, a top performer who mentions they would leave for a remote work opportunity might be offered a work-from-home option, even if just for a couple of days each week. Of course, this feedback could also be applied company-wide to institute a formal work-from-home policy for all employees.
Some employees will never share feedback directly with their employers, but may share it on review sites. It’s important to monitor these sites so you don’t miss important employee feedback.
Employer review sites to keep on your radar include:
- Glassdoor
- CareerBliss
- InHerSight
- Great Place to Work
- Comparably
- Indeed
Claim your employer page and sign up for alerts, where applicable, to see feedback from your current and former employees as it’s shared.
Managers are on the frontline, privy to both formal and informal employee feedback. They’re hearing it during one-on-ones, in team meetings, and in water cooler conversations. They may also have gut feelings about what is driving satisfaction, retention, engagement, and productivity on their teams—and what is hindering it.
Keep the lines of communication open with your managers, and explicitly tell them that no piece of feedback is insignificant. Whether it’s a one-off employee comment about compensation, or an observation that women are leaving the team faster than men, you want to know. You can incorporate related questions into employee surveys to learn whether the rest of your workforce feels the same way.
