Encouraging and getting employee feedback is often ignored, minimized, or quickly checked off casually. But, honest employee feedback can often be awkward, feel uncomfortable, or scary. We love employee feedback when it’s positive, and it recognizes a peer. But, when it’s critical, we too often label the employee as a complainer, unrealistic, or a jerk.
Yet, the ability for employees to speak and be listened to is an intrinsic part of a work culture that employees value more than compensation, according to Deloitte research. This article will explain why and how employee feedback and actual listening cultivates employee motivation, increases retention, and improves engagement. The following article will discuss how managers can improve listening among their entire team to capitalize on employee feedback.
Employee Feedback Improves Intrinsic Motivation
Employees perform at their best when they have intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation grows from within and can only be cultivated, not forced, bribed, or rewarded. Many things influence intrinsic motivation, but there are three key drivers behind employee motivation:
- Being heard
- Autonomy
- Ability to make a difference
When a manager and employer encourages honest employee feedback and then listens, employees feel heard. It takes work and effort to listen to an employee, especially when you don’t agree. Research from the University of Texas, Austin, shows that managers are less likely to listen to employees’ opinions they don’t relate to as much. Taking the time to carefully listen and acknowledge differing viewpoints tells employees that their opinions and views are valuable even when they don’t support your current goals and focus.
Employee feedback and the ability to affect change give employees the ability to make a difference. Small, or large, the ability to make a difference has become crucial for today’s workforce. Employees are empowered when employees can provide feedback that changes something in the workplace, improves a process, or increases opportunities. This autonomy gives employees the ability to assess, grow, communicate, and change their work. All these are critical factors in employee motivation.
Encouraging Employee Feedback Improves Employee Retention
Employee feedback may not always be comfortable, but encouraging it can significantly impact your employee retention. When employees feel important and that their work matters, they are more likely to take pride in their work. Initiating conversations around major projects and ongoing goals helps each team member see how the rest of the team relies on them.
You’ve probably heard the saying that “people don’t leave jobs; they leave bad managers.” But, that saying could go “people don’t leave jobs, they leave situations where they aren’t heard and can’t change the negative aspects of the job.” Except that saying is way too long and not as catchy. Essentially, the first saying places the blame for the dire situation on the manager. Still, if the same manager encouraged and listened to employee feedback, then he or she could solve the core issues driving the employee away.
It would save employers a lot of money in lost talent, lost knowledge, recruitment, training, and mistakes of new employees. Employee retention measures the savings the employee attrition costs employers, but it’s also a sign of the health and satisfaction of your employees.
Did you know?
According to SHRM, 70% of employees rank the empowerment to take action when something negative happens at work as a key factor of their engagement and satisfaction. Encouraging feedback during those critical points in the process makes that very thing possible for employees.
- Hold debriefing meetings regularly during long projects and after their completion.
- Encourage employees to respectfully voice concerns and listen.
- Employees stay longer when the things driving them away can be changed or removed.
Engagement Increases With Employee Feedback
Both positive and concerned employee feedback has the power to increase engagement. Positive feedback is also called peer recognition. It has the magical effect of engaging both the employee giving the feedback or praise and the employee receiving it. It solidifies team unity and increases morale. It shows employees how they make a difference to their colleagues and speaks louder than manager praise.
Even though peer recognition is usually the type of feedback often discussed, it isn’t the only feedback that makes a difference. The kind of feedback that encompasses uncomfortable conversations can also make a positive difference. But first, let’s clear this up. Employee feedback is not the same thing as “gripe sessions,” which usually leave everyone frustrated. Employee feedback allows an employee to speak up when they are struggling with a task, have an obstacle they are struggling with, or ask for more help. It enables them to seek mastery of a task or job that’s currently stopping them. Daniel Pink highlights that one of the three biggest drivers to employee engagement is the mastery of their job. That’s why mentoring makes a big difference- it provides an outlet for employee feedback and helps to overcome the challenges they face.
Another less-talked-about aspect of employee feedback is what it does for younger generations. Millennials, as a whole, scoff at the traditional hierarchy of management. They are demanding a voice and want to be on the same playing field with management when speaking up and making a difference. Employee feedback helps to level that playing field and speaks to millennials. But, it doesn’t just matter to millennials. It speaks to the generations that came before. Every generation has demanded and sought a little more ability to effect change. Hence, even though millennials are the ones in the lens demanding a voice, other generations also seek and value that ability to provide feedback to their employers and be heard.
- Peer recognition engages both the giving and receiving employee
- A key driver of engagement is mastery
- Employee feedback levels the playing field with management and gives all employees a voice.
Conclusion
Through effective employee communication and soliciting feedback, managers can create effective change that creates an environment where employees feel heard and empowered to make a difference, which cultivates engagement.
Be sure to check out this article on three steps to better employee feedback.
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition.