{"id":6858,"date":"2020-06-12T19:58:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T02:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bwblogdev.wpengine.com\/employee-feedback-foundation-to-a-better-employee-experience\/"},"modified":"2023-12-15T05:02:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T13:02:11","slug":"employee-feedback-foundation-to-a-better-employee-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.betterworks.com\/magazine\/employee-feedback-foundation-to-a-better-employee-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Employee Feedback Is the Foundation to a Better Employee Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a brave new world for companies, one that demands efficient, effective, and seamless solutions across all phases of employment \u2013 from recruiting and onboarding to ongoing engagement plans<\/a> and exiting \u2013 to create an impactful, satisfying employee experience. In the past, HR has treated each of the components behind that experience \u2013 employee engagement and development, company culture, reward systems, listening, and others \u2013 as separate entities with distinct managers, platforms, and metrics. Going forward, however, it\u2019s in an organization\u2019s best interest to view the employee experience as their employees do \u2013 as integrated pieces of a larger puzzle.<\/p>\n

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From an employee\u2019s perspective, these pieces interlock, act, and react with one another, just as the different pieces of their own lives do. Emotional well-being impacts physical health that affects their career and, ultimately, their personal finances. Lines are now blurred \u2013 both at work and home \u2013 with no distinct borders and barriers between the many aspects of the average employee\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s workforce expects an employee experience that takes all of these different pieces into account, designed to address the whole rather than individual parts. Furthermore, given the rapid pace of modern life and the overarching convenience provided by mobile technologies, employees also <\/span>expect immediacy and ease<\/a> with that comprehensive, interwoven experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in order to understand how well your organization is meeting the expectations of your people, you have to effectively collect and analyze employee feedback<\/a> for each touchpoint of the employee experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feedback Is the Cornerstone to an Effective Employee Experience<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

A singular event or moment does not define the employee experience. It\u2019s broad and dynamic with roots established at the very beginning of the employer\/employee relationship. Candidates are already assessing an organization<\/a>, picturing what their life would be like if they worked at a particular company, even before the first interview is conducted.<\/p>\n

\"Feedback<\/div>\n


\nAs the graphic above demonstrates, betterworks Engage<\/a> gauges the employee experience across the entire spectrum of employment, from the recruiting and candidature stage to the exiting and even alumni phase, and all points in between. While the individual stages feature unique characteristics and expectations, a single common thread weaves between each of them \u2013 the need for insightful, impactful employee feedback<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gathering, analyzing, and acting upon consistent feedback in real-time is the only way an employer can fully understand the ever-shifting expectations, goals, and values of a dynamic workforce. The insights gathered throughout the feedback process<\/a>, whether anonymous or not<\/a>, become the cornerstone of a satisfying employee experience, allowing an organization to strategize with as much pertinent, timely people data as possible. The result, assuming a company is diligent and meticulous with their planning and execution, is an inviting, fulfilling employee experience<\/a> that encompasses every phase of the employee journey. An effective way of obtaining feedback is to use QR Codes<\/a> and deploy them at various points at the workplace, such as conference room, cafetaria, etc providing employees with the opportunity to scan & provide anonymous feedback with ease.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps foreboding at first glance considering the importance and required immediacy of the process, technology now affords organizations efficient solutions to their feedback needs. Instead of the antiquated annual survey that was never timely and rarely accurate to begin with, a feedback system that can distribute, collect, and interpret frequent pulse polls and engagement survey results<\/a> gives management relevant, real-time, actionable insight to address issues and make changes before problems become systemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Engage\u2019s platform<\/a>, for instance, can be used from virtually anywhere and from nearly any device or platform common to the workplace. It can collect feedback from <\/span>any type of employee<\/a> \u2013 full time, part time, contractor, freelance, candidates, alumni \u2013 an essential ability since every team member \u2013 past, present, and future \u2013 is a wellspring of vital <\/span>insight and innovation for a company.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, collecting and analyzing the data is just the first critical step of the process. Creating an action plan<\/a> that is designed and implemented based on the insights gathered by an effective feedback system is not only a best practice but, perhaps more importantly, expected from a workforce. If employees see a company using even the most innovative, informative feedback platforms but doing nothing with the results, they feel undervalued and unappreciated. Empty lip service can quickly destroy engagement and leave the employee experience in tatters.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, taking specific steps at each stage of the employee journey will help companies take full advantage of the insights collected from an organized, effective feedback system. Beginning before a candidate joins an organization and ending after their exit, the employee experience requires cultivation at each of these phases based on the insights provided by an employee feedback platform that is agile, informative, convenient, and innovative.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recruiting \/ Candidature<\/h3>\n

Both candidates and employers can easily lose sight of the bigger picture in the recruiting process, failing to recognize what a <\/span>wealth of valuable information<\/a> it can provide to both. While there are important considerations to take into account \u2013 the prospect of a new career direction for an applicant, a potential new team member for a company \u2013 neither should squander the potential insights that one can provide the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

From an employer\u2019s perspective, collecting feedback throughout the recruiting process can help find areas for improvement in the future. This feedback should focus on everything from the original job posting and hospitality displayed when arriving for an interview to the impression of the workplace and professionalism of correspondence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such feedback should be collected from a wide-ranging group and include applicants who have been extended offers as well as those rejected. Collecting from as broad a swath of applicants as possible minimizes the possibility of the results being skewed either too positively or negatively and, thus, not nearly as insightful as they would have been otherwise. Ideally, recruiting feedback would feature surveys for the applicant to complete that toe the line between convenience and depth, capturing as many characteristics about the interviewing candidate as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

The surveys, while <\/span>retaining anonymity<\/a> for the benefit of the candidate, should be thorough and cover the individual’s current progress in the hiring process, source and movement of the application up to that point, and the specific position they are interviewing for, all without revealing the applicant’s identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise, open-ended questioning could also play a vital role in the surveys, asking each applicant to provide <\/span>their honest thoughts<\/a> on the hiring process, how to improve it, as well as what the ideal process might include. As previously stated, however, capturing the information is only the first step of an effective recruiting feedback system, albeit a critical one. Once an employer gathers the data, it must be appropriately analyzed and transformed into actionable insight to take full advantage of its abilities to improve recruiting as well as the first stage of the employee experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Engage’s platform, for instance, allows companies to thoroughly analyze often nuanced responses to gain information and guidance that normally might be missed by human-based, manual analysis. For recruiting, such analysis can reveal specific issues that impede the progress of talented individuals or even qualified applicants entirely skipped over due to flaws in a company\u2019s hiring procedures. A variety of resulting metrics \u2013 an organization\u2019s offer-to-acceptance ratio, for example \u2013 can measure the overall efficiency of the process, isolate underlying issues, and provide a sense of direction on how to fix them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Onboarding and New Hires<\/h3>\n

Successful onboarding procedures provide a lasting positive impact over the duration of a new team member\u2019s employment with a company. In fact, <\/span>nearly 70% of workers<\/a> are likely to remain with an employer for at least three years if the onboarding experience was positive. Furthermore, 58% of new employees who participated in an organized, structured onboarding process and employee engagement strategy<\/a> were also likely to stay for at least three years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even a standard onboarding process results in <\/span>50% greater productivity<\/a> from newly hired employees. Since research has shown that new hires<\/a> typically get about <\/span>90 days<\/a> to prove their value in a new position, the boost in productivity<\/a> created by successful onboarding significantly decreases the amount of time an employee needs to start adding tangible value to a company’s operations and overall mission. Given the high costs of attrition \u2013 regarding both money and time \u2013 companies simply cannot afford to have substandard onboarding procedures.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the various employee feedback categories that we’ve <\/span>discussed in the past<\/a>, the company should also strive for a better understanding of an employee’s thoughts throughout onboarding and the orientation process. This feedback should include open-ended questions that allow employees to judge their performance up to that point. Specific questions like the following will also be beneficial in improving onboarding procedures:<\/span><\/p>\n