Employee Listening: A Key to Innovation and Growth

Employee Listening: A Key to Innovation and Growth Employee experience (EX) is a holistic matter. It’s the collection of experiences that an employee has with their organization, and can include interactions, impressions, emotions, and more. EX is influenced by many factors, such as the physical workspace, the organizational culture, the technology tools, the leadership style, the learning opportunities and the rewards and recognition.  EX is important because it affects not only how employees feel about their work, but also how they perform, collaborate, innovate, and contribute to the organization’s success. A positive EX can lead to higher engagement, retention, productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability. A negative EX can result in lower morale, turnover, quality, loyalty, and reputation.  One of the key drivers of EX is listening. Listening means actively seeking feedback from employees on various aspects of their work experience. It also means analyzing that feedback to identify strengths and weaknesses in EX. And most importantly, it means acting on that feedback to improve EX for current and future employees. 

According to Willis Towers Watson 2021 Global Survey:  More than nine in 10 employers (92%) indicate that enhancing the EX will be a priority over the next three years 

Listening to employees has many benefits for both employees and employers. 

Benefits

• Listening demonstrates that you care about your employees as individuals. It shows that you value their opinions and perspectives. It builds trust and respect between employees and managers 

• Listening provides real-time feedback to take action or make adjustments. It helps you monitor employee sentiment and engagement levels. It enables you to address issues or concerns before they escalate or affect performance 

• Listening empowers your managers to engage their teams. It equips them with data and insights to understand their team members’ needs, motivations, preferences and challenges. It helps them tailor their communication style, coaching approach and recognition methods 

• Listening gains intelligence on how to move your business forward. It taps into the collective wisdom of your employees who have first-hand knowledge of your customers, products and processes. It uncovers opportunities for improvement, innovation and growth that you might otherwise miss. 

  Listening to employees is not a one-time event or a checkbox exercise. It is an ongoing process that requires commitment, strategy and action. It requires dialogue that involves asking relevant questions, acknowledging feedback, sharing results and including employees in solutions.  If you want to improve your EX, you need an effective employee listening platform that can help you collect, analyze and act on feedback from your employees. There are many options available in the market, but not all of them are created equal.  To choose the best employee listening platform for your company, you need to consider several factors, such as: 

• The flexibility, simplicity and functionality of the platform 
•  The quality, variety and customization of the questions 
• The data output formats, analysis options and reporting features 
• The competitor benchmarking, action planning and follow-up solutions
• The pricing, support and security of the platform  

If you need help with choosing an employee listening platform that meets your needs and goals, we’re here for you. Contact us today to find out how we can help you create a positive EX for your employees. Nicole Vaughan, CEO & Founder of myCandr