Employee input is essential to your company. Employee feedback can help you improve your performance and the quality of your workforce. You can also use employee feedback to improve products, customer service, and innovation in your company. However, your employees may feel nervous or uncomfortable sharing their ideas. Here are some ways to encourage your employees to share feedback more frequently:
Ask for Feedback
As obvious as this may seem, a lot of leaders forget to ask or, even worse, unintentionally discourage employees from sharing feedback. Ask for ideas for solving specific problems and make sure you include all employees when asking. Avoid using language like “we’ve always done it this way,” when employees approach you with new ideas. This will show employees that you are willing to change things and that their ideas will be seriously considered.
Provide Training
Your employees may be excited to help solve problems, but when push comes to shove, they might not know how to come up with new ideas, create solutions, or provide feedback. Consider giving your employees training on problem solving and presenting ideas. This will increase the amount of well thought out ideas you are presented with.
Give Honest Feedback
If you want employees to give you their honest opinion, you should be sharing your honest opinion. That doesn’t mean you have to be brutally honest about everything your employees do. It does require that you take the time to give employees real feedback that they can use to improve and learn. This will set a standard of productive, honest feedback in your company.
Make Obvious Changes
Employees won’t want to share their feedback if they don’t think their ideas will be used or paid attention to. When you start applying someone’s feedback, be very open about it. Make sure to give the employee credit for their idea and tell them how you will implement it. If your employees see you giving recognition for feedback and actively using employee ideas, they will be more likely to share their thoughts with you.
Use this advice to increase the amount of honest employee feedback in your company.