Understanding how your employees really feel is key to maintaining engagement and morale. But sending out an engagement survey once a year probably isn’t enough to give you an accurate picture. In this article, we’ll discuss the many benefits of employee listening and explore how you could implement it in your organization.
What is employee listening?
Employee listening is an HR strategy that involves collecting a constant stream of feedback from your employees. It allows you to gain insights into their feelings, opinions, concerns, and motivations. An effective employee listening program should involve using various methods to collect feedback from employees, including:
- Engagement surveys
- Pulse surveys
- Focus groups and feedback sessions
- Town hall meetings
- Intranet engagement metrics
- Suggestion boxes
Crucially, employee listening is also about acting on the feedback you receive. This demonstrates to employees that you take their thoughts and feelings seriously and want to give them the best possible employee experience.
Why is employee listening important?
In a recent survey, 90% of employees said they are more likely to stay at an organization that gathers and acts on feedback — meaning that effective employee listening could have a significant impact on your retention rate.
And another survey conducted in 2021 found that 74% of employees are more effective at their jobs when they feel heard, and that companies where employees feel heard are significantly likely to outperform their peers. Employee listening could help you to drive better performance and even boost your company’s bottom line.
Here are some other ways that continuous employee listening could benefit your organization:
- Helps you understand employees’ feelings: Employee listening helps you understand how your people are feeling in real time. This is particularly valuable for companies with distributed workforces since connecting with employees and gauging their state of mind can otherwise be difficult.
- Provides real-time feedback on workplace initiatives: As an HR or internal comms professional, it can be hard to know whether your work is having an impact. Employee listening gives you real, actionable feedback from employees, helping you to hone and perfect your strategy.
- Allows for targeted interventions: Effective employee listening allows you to spot issues that are localized to certain teams, departments, locations, or groups of employees — and then target your response to ensure maximum impact.
- Creates a continuous feedback loop: Employee listening is a constant, ongoing process that involves gathering insights, acting on them, and then seeking feedback on your interventions. This enables you to understand the impact of your actions and improve your strategy over time.
- Strengthens relationships with employees: Conducting regular employee listening activities shows employees that you care about them and their opinions — especially when feedback is taken seriously. This can help create a stronger, more positive company culture where everyone feels valued and seen.
How to create an effective employee listening strategy in 7 steps
Ready to get started with employee listening? Here are the steps to follow to put your strategy together.
- Set clear objectives for your employee listening program
The first step in building a successful employee listening strategy is to determine what you want to achieve. For example, do you want to provide managers with insights into employee motivations to help them inspire and engage their teams? Are you looking for feedback from employees on a new policy or initiative?
Taking the time to consider what you’re trying to achieve with your employee listening program before you start seeking feedback ensures your strategy is as targeted and effective as possible. Your goals should be closely tied to your company’s overall strategy and objectives.
- Identify and engage key stakeholders
An effective employee listening program requires input from several key departments — and getting the right people on board early can help set you up for success. In general, the strategy as a whole is owned and managed by the HR department. However, you may also need involvement from:
- Internal comms: To craft compelling messages and surveys
- Leadership: To provide support for implementing employees’ feedback
- IT: To help with data analysis and reporting
- Legal: To assist with data protection and privacy
- Finance: To approve budget for tools and software
- Decide how you’ll gather data
The next step is to choose which methods you’ll use to gather feedback. The traditional route is to use employee surveys, though there are many other possible options. You’ll probably need to use more than one data-collection method for an effective continuous listening strategy.
For example, you might use regular pulse surveys to monitor employee feelings over time. However, you’ll likely need to supplement these with more in-depth surveys once or twice a year. It’s also a good idea to incorporate offline, non-survey methods, such as town hall meetings, focus group sessions, and manager one-on-ones.
- Collect feedback and analyze data
Processing and analyzing data is the most important step in your employee listening strategy. The idea is to look for key themes that emerge from the feedback you’ve received so you can put the appropriate measures in place to address them.
For example, a survey might reveal that many employees are having issues with a particular piece of software. You can get a clearer picture of the problem by setting up focus groups or talking to employees in person. Then, you can help employees overcome their struggles by providing targeted training.
- Communicate the results to your team
Communicating about the results of your employee listening activities can help inspire trust and confidence in the process. It can also have a positive impact on the participation rate of future initiatives since it shows employees their responses matter.
As a minimum, consider sharing a summary of the insights you’ve uncovered on your intranet or in an employee newsletter. If you can, it’s also a good idea to share your action plan for dealing with any issues that have come up. If you don’t yet have a plan, being honest about this (and even asking employees for input) can help you to win trust.
- Act on the feedback you’ve received
The point of employee listening is ultimately to improve things for your employees. That means that taking action based on the information you receive is a crucial part of the process. Putting measures in place that are specifically designed to address issues uncovered through surveys and other employee listening strategies can help enhance the employee experience.
Plus, seeing you take action based on their feedback shows employees that you value them and take their feedback seriously. Over time, this can strengthen your company culture by facilitating trust and making employees more likely to open up.
- Keep measuring and improving
Employee listening can help you uncover recurring or widespread issues and put in place appropriate measures to resolve them. But your job isn’t over once you’ve taken action. Employee listening is a constant process, and the next step is to solicit more feedback on the changes you’ve made.
By continuously using employee listening mechanisms to gather feedback, you can ensure that every action you take has the right impact on your organization and its people.
Best practices for effective employee listening
Employee listening can have some big benefits for an organization — but only if you do it right. Here are some tips to follow to ensure your program is as effective as possible:
- Keep feedback anonymous to encourage honesty: If you want your employee listening program to be a success, you need employees to participate. You also need them to share their genuine, honest feedback. But some employees may be worried about retaliation or that “complaining” could damage their relationship with their managers. Making surveys anonymous can help to ensure employees feel comfortable.
- Share results transparently to show accountability: If employees are constantly filling in surveys but never see the results, they’ll quickly become disengaged with your employee listening program. To show that you take employees’ feedback seriously, you should be open about your findings. For example, you could publish a summary of each survey’s results on your company intranet.
- Choose the right tools: Launching an employee listening program may mean investing in some new tools. However, you may not necessarily need a dedicated employee listening platform. To get the best bang for your buck, look for tools that serve multiple purposes, such as a communications platform with survey capabilities, an intranet and app to share results, and analytics features to help you interpret data.
- Use a range of feedback mechanisms: Employee listening works best when you gather input from a variety of sources. For example, regular pulse surveys give you quick, real-time insights into how employees are feeling. But for a more in-depth understanding, you’ll need to supplement these with other methods. Using a mixture of anonymous and non-anonymous methods is also a good idea.
- Act on suggestions wherever possible: Asking employees for constant feedback and never putting it into action is a waste of time for everyone. Of course, you may not be able to act on every piece of feedback you receive. But seeing at least some of their suggestions come to fruition reassures employees that you value them and their opinions — and can increase participation in future surveys.
Challenges in employee listening (and how to overcome them)
Putting together an effective employee listening strategy is a lot of work — and there are bound to be some hurdles along the way. Here are some of the biggest challenges you might face as you put your strategy together.
Low response rates
The lower your survey response rates, the less you can rely on the data you gather. For example, you may end up with a skewed picture of the state of employee satisfaction within your organization if only those employees with something to complain about are motivated to respond.
The key to maximizing participation rates is showing employees that their feedback matters. At a basic level, that means publishing survey results for employees to see, and ensuring that you act on feedback as much as possible. It’s also about making the data you gather part of the company conversation, for example by referencing it in meetings or using it as a basis for goal-setting.
Resistance from managers
In some cases, team managers may be reluctant to act on feedback garnered through employee listening. The simple reason for this is that many people are resistant to change — especially if they feel they’re being criticized.
It’s important to make it clear to managers that employee listening isn’t just about giving employees an opportunity to air complaints, but improving the company culture and work environment for everyone. Providing ongoing training to managers on how to handle feedback effectively is also key.
Data overload
Employee listening involves collecting, processing, and analyzing a lot of data — which can be overwhelming for your team. As you set up your employee listening strategy, you’ll need to think about the tools you’ll use to collect feedback from employees and analyze that data once you’ve gathered it.
Of course, sometimes these tools are one and the same: for example, employee listening software for pulse surveys often includes a built-in analytics function that allows you to interpret and understand the results. But, depending on your employee listening strategy, you may need to invest in additional tools to draw out insights from the data you’ve collected.
Survey fatigue
There’s no getting away from it: effective employee listening means asking employees to participate in a lot of surveys. Sending these out regularly allows you to gather timely and relevant data. But the more surveys you send, the more you risk overwhelming or annoying your employees. Over time, this can decrease your response rates and leave employees feeling frustrated and disengaged.
While there’s no simple solution to this, “survey fatigue” is a particular risk when employees feel like the surveys they’re constantly being asked to complete are pointless. Sharing the results of your surveys with employees acting on the feedback you receive is key to keeping employees engaged.
Privacy concerns
These days, employers use a wide range of methods to understand employee sentiment and opinions. As well as soliciting feedback from employees through surveys, this might include performing sentiment analysis on intranet posts, monitoring internet use, and even tracking data from wearable devices like Fitbits. Some employees are understandably worried about the impact of these extensive employee listening strategies on their privacy and security.
For this reason, employers engaging in any sort of employee listening should always think carefully about the ethical implications of their actions. Being diligent and proactive about protecting employees’ personal data is also key to building and maintaining trust.
Examples of effective employee listening in action
We’ve discussed the benefits employee listening can bring to an organization, as well as some of the challenges to its implementation. Now, let’s talk about what effective employee listening can actually look like in practice.
Example #1: Deploying pulse surveys for quick insights
Pulse surveys are a great way to get an instant read regarding the “on the ground” feeling in your organization. They’re typically very short — think 1–3 questions — and take employees just a few minutes to complete. Deploying pulse surveys regularly allows you to accurately monitor employee sentiment over time and swiftly react to changes. That means they’re especially useful during times of organizational change.
So, what might this strategy look like in practice? One example comes from global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, which started sending out weekly pulse surveys in 2020. The surveys are made up of two core questions. The first asks employees to rate how they were feeling on a six-point scale, and the second gives them the opportunity to add more detail with a free-text response. An optional third question is added whenever the company needs to gather more information.
This strategy allows McKinsey to keep a finger on the pulse of their employees’ feelings during a challenging time. Crucially, they also share the results of each survey with employees on a weekly basis and provide content on how survey results have been used to shape action. This helps to keep employees engaged with the feedback process, leading to a high response rate.
Example #2: Garnering instant feedback through intranet posts
If you’re new to employee listening, it’s a good idea to consider how the tools you already have could be incorporated into your strategy. For example, many companies have an employee intranet where employees and managers can share and respond to information. Keeping an eye on things like comments, likes, and reactions on specific posts within your intranet can be a useful form of employee listening.
For example, let’s say you regularly share details of new policies on a specific section of your intranet. Monitoring the responses to these posts can help you to gauge employee reactions. Plus, the best intranet platforms come with built-in analytics features that can give you even more insights into your employees’ engagement with various posts and content types.
Example #3: Designing engagement surveys for in-depth insights
While pulse surveys can give you useful insights into real-time employee sentiment and engagement, they don’t provide much detail. This is by design: the whole point of a pulse survey is that it’s quick and easy for employees to complete. However, it can be useful to supplement your regular pulse surveys with more in-depth analysis.
For example, many employers send out a comprehensive employee engagement survey once a year, which asks employees a variety of questions about their experiences in the workplace. These surveys can give you a much more detailed picture of how your employees are feeling. Then, you can use the insights you’ve uncovered to launch targeted initiatives to combat any issues identified through the survey — and then follow up with regular pulse surveys.
Example #4: Gathering real-time feedback through employee apps
Proper employee listening means taking into account the views and feelings of all employees — not just those who work in the office. And a mobile app that allows people to share their input from anywhere can help keep your remote and frontline employees in the loop.
With the right tool, employees can easily respond to polls and surveys from their work or personal mobile devices, wherever they’re working from. They’ll also be able to use the app to access and engage with content on your employee intranet, and you can use built-in analytics to track their engagement and participation.
How Staffbase can enhance employee listening
The right communication platform can streamline and enhance your employee listening program by providing you with the tools you need to successfully gather and analyze feedback from employees. Here are a few ways a tool like Staffbase could help you better understand your employees:
- Pulse surveys for real-time feedback collection: Using Staffbase, it’s easy to create simple pulse surveys that give you an instant bird’s eye view of your team’s feelings. From the employee’s perspective, it’s easy to respond from either a desktop computer or the user-friendly mobile app.
- Analytics dashboards for actionable insights: Staffbase comes with built-in analytics and reporting features that help you analyze data you’ve collected and draw out actionable insights. This means it’s easy to spot drops in engagement or other problems concentrated in specific teams, departments, or locations — and then laser-focus your response for maximum impact.
- Instant feedback on intranet posts: Employees can engage with intranet posts through likes, comments, and reactions, making it easy to see when your communications are having an impact. When paired with Staffbase’s built-in analytics, this makes it easier than ever to gauge engagement and alignment with key messages.
- Mobile app to reach the entire organization: With Staffbase, surveys, intranet content, and more are all accessible through a mobile app that employees can download on any device. That means you won’t miss out on insights from your remote and frontline team.
Staffbase is a centralized communication hub that ensures all voices are heard. Whether employees are in the office, working remotely, or out on the road, they’ll be able to use the platform to securely share their thoughts, ideas, and feedback. This makes it easier than ever to understand your team’s feelings and tailor your interventions to create the best possible employee experience.
How to get started with employee listening today
Setting up an employee listening program from scratch is a significant undertaking — so it’s understandable if you’re feeling overwhelmed. To help you get started, here are a few small actions you could take today:
- Assess your current tools and strategies: To get started, take some time to consider the ways you’re already gathering feedback from employees. To do this, think about the different ways that employees and managers interact within your organization, including town hall meetings, one-on-ones, surveys, and intranet posts. It’s quite likely that you’re already conducting some form of employee listening without knowing it.
- Test the waters with a small-scale pulse survey: Before launching anything huge, it’s a good idea to get started with a very short pulse survey. This lets you test out any employee listening tool you’re thinking of using, both in terms of creating and sending the survey and analyzing the results. It also lets employees try out responding to a survey. For best results, make it a super-quick, one-question survey that asks employees to rank how they’re feeling on a simple scale.
- Begin discussing feedback collection with leadership: Employee listening is only useful if you’re actually going to implement the feedback you receive. And securing buy-in from your company’s leadership early on can help ensure they’re on side when it comes to making changes down the line. That’s why one of the first steps when thinking about setting up an employee listening strategy should be to discuss the project with leadership and get them on board.
- Explore platforms like Staffbase to simplify and enhance employee listening: If you want your employee listening program to work, you’re going to need the right tools. Start your journey by looking for a multi-functional, user-friendly tool that can empower all of your employees to share their valuable thoughts and insights. Checking out a platform like Staffbase is an important first step toward effective employee listening. Why not sign up for a free demo to get started?