5 Most Essential Ways How To Listen To Your Employees

One of my favorite quotes that I have heard about leadership and organisational culture while working in the People & Talent space goes something like this:

“You shouldn't be worried when your employees speak up, but when they become silent”

…and frankly speaking - I couldn't agree more with it, not only as a People & Talent professional but also as a people leader and founder who's organisation's success depends on how empowered, engaged and committed the team members are. 

I think it's needless to say that the lack of ability to speak up and share honest feedback and ideas for improvements is highly discouraging and has a tremendously negative impact on people's motivation. The end-results are well known - frustration, low engagement and contribution, decreased productivity and finally - resignation, to pursue an opportunity where “the grass is greener”. A “magic formula” for how to lose your best employees! 

What can we as People & Talent leaders, executives and founders do to fix this?  

There are two essential parts of this equation - awareness and change. In the light of this article, we will focus on awareness, as this is the very first step towards the change (management). 

One of the very first steps of becoming aware of something is - listening. As humans we have quite limited cognitive ability - usually we can listen to just one person speaking at a time. In the organisational context, especially once your team has grown beyond 7 people and hierarchies have been established, listening and truly understanding what is being meant, becomes even more challenging. Once your organisation grows large, there is a danger of losing the touch on what's actually going on “on the ground”. Hence, establishing the right “listening channels” to understand the health of your organisation becomes crucial for People & Talent leaders, executives and founders, especially when the organisation starts to scale up. Here is what these channels are and how to make the use of them in your organisation:      

1st level: Weekly 1:1 check-ins

This is where everything starts. The regular 1:1 honest conversations between the direct report and their manager (employees and their leaders) are the ones that truly matter. These are the moments where in the eyes of an employee “the company” turns into a real person. These conversations are the ones that define whether the direct report will trust their manager, and with this - the company - or not, and vis-a-versa. Only if the trust is present in these conversations and the direct reports believe that there will be no backlash for them, then also honest feedback will be shared by them. Without trustful relationships these conversations will turn into simple “praise and raise” type of sessions, where the direct reports share only what´s going well and avoid the “negative” information that might damage their performance in the eyes of their managers. While such a behaviour is absolutely understandable on an individual level, it is highly dangerous for the company, as the “problems in the field” remain uncovered until the situation escalates and crosses the “red-line”. E.g. the direct report is afraid to share with their manager what they are unhappy about and simply decides to leave the company for a place.       

When: Weekly or bi-weekly. 

2nd level: Employee surveys (“Pulse Checks”) 

One of the most powerful ways to capture the feedback of your employees are the anonymous surveys. It is highly important to run them on a regular basis, not once in a year, but ideally on a quarterly basis (or at least every six months). Of course the surveys have their limitations (e.g. it's hard to make them work in smaller companies/teams), but if done right - they can become a very reliable source of feedback around what's going well and what is not in your organisation. This tool will not replace the “honest” 1:1s, but is a great addition to your organisational health measurement tools. If implementing it in your organisation, make sure that you include the qualitative and quantitative (incl. eNPS) questions in your surveys. One of the best formats is to have a shorter survey addressing the most important dimensions on a monthly basis, and one - a more comprehensive one - on a quarterly basis.         

When to conduct: Monthly (short version) and quarterly (a comprehensive version). The quarterly survey should ideally take place before the quarterly All-hands and the results be reviewed in the session. 

3rd level: All-hands with Q&A sessions 

Regular All-hands sessions with the management team are not only an excellent way on how to keep your people updated on what's going on in the company, but is also a very good moment for you as an (HR) leader/executive to listen to your people what they have to say. To make the most out of this format - make sure that you have regular (quarterly) All-hands sessions where you dedicate some significant amount of time for the Q&A part. The questions can be collected in advance, during the session and directly from the audience (if the session is in person). There are various tools that can be used for that, such as sli.do an etc. The most important part is that your audience would have an opportunity to ask questions also anonymously and that your leadership team would also address these questions during the Q&A part.       

When: Quarterly

4th level: Employer review platforms 

The employer review platforms are a great place to get additional insights, as here you will often find honest feedback - especially on the aspects of your organisation and negative experiences that employees don't dare to share internally. Monitoring these platforms regularly is a good way to make sure that the critical feedback reaches you as an HR and/or executive and you have a realistic picture on what's going on in your organisation. As a rule of thumb - the better your internal feedback channels and culture are, the less negative reviews will end up on the employer review platforms, especially if you “fix” the problems that are being addressed in those insights. Here are a few platforms to name - Glassdoor, Indeed, fairygodboss, Vault, kununu and similar.   

When to look into it: on a regular basis (at least once a month)

5th level: Exit interviews 

Exit interviews are an excellent way to capture qualitative feedback on the situation in the organisation should not be underestimated. One of the main reasons for this is that the departing employees tend sometimes to be much more open with their feedback as they don´t fear that what they say might backfire at them. If conducting the interviews right, they will provide an essential addition to all the previously mentioned channels and help you to get a fully rounded picture of what works and what doesn´t in your organisation.    

When to conduct: Always when an employee leaves the organisation 

The “People Analytics & Intelligence” dimension  

While the previous five channels were relatively easy to establish, applying the “People Analytics & Intelligence'' dimension is something that will heavily depend on the size of your organisation, HR technology that is being used, the tech savviness of your organisation, the legal environment that your organisation operates in, and several other factors. This dimension addresses mainly which people data and how your organisation collects, and how it is being used to make people relevant decisions. While People Analytics & Intelligence used to be for many organisations more of a “just a theoretical discipline” for a long time, in the meantime with the arrival of new People technology (incl. AI-based one), even small organisations can drive significant value from this data-based approach. However, as this topic deserves an article of its own, to be able even just to “scratch the surface”, the core message in the context of this writing will be: make sure that your People Team is familiar with this dimension and has the needed knowledge and skills around it to be able to navigate within that space. A few links to useful resources around People Analytics & Intelligence will be in the first comments.   

Final words

Thank you for making it until here! I hope this writing has helped to create a better understanding of how to listen to your people and organisation through various ways. Although each of these 5 channels is a powerful tool on its own, the most comprehensive picture of the health of your organisation you will get only by using all of them at the same time. For HR leaders, executives and founders: one of the best practical ways to keep track of your organisation´s health is to create a dashboard with qualitative and quantitative insights from these channels which is being updated on a monthly basis.     

A true difference, however, will be visible only once your organisation starts not only to listen more efficiently to your people, but also to change itself based on those insights and feedback that you get through these channels. Once people see and feel that their voice has been heard and the feedback has led to a positive change, it will create a stronger trust towards the organisation and its leaders. This will not only help your organisation to become a better place to be at with more satisfied employees who feel that they belong here, but will also contribute to becoming an “employer of choice” that top talents will be eagerly wanting to join and stay at.     

PS. Let me know in the comments if you are interested in any of these 5 topics in particular - happy to focus on it in one of my next articles :)