“The Voice of the Workplace,” heard from nearly 500 business leaders, HR leaders and consultants about whether or not they agreed with two key statements:
1. “Providing an open forum for employees to offer candid feedback is essential for organizational improvement,”
2. “Negative feedback from employees can be useful to help an organization improve.”
An overwhelming 96% responded positively to the first statement, and 97% to the second. The responses were fairly consistent across various sizes of organisation, job titles, and geographic regions.
“We were surprised to see almost unanimous agreement that negative feedback from employees can be useful,” said Michael Papay, CEO, Waggl. “Over the years, we’ve seen many instances of companies that have either ignored or attempted to eradicate negative feedback, usually with less than optimal results. But this data indicates that attitudes are shifting, with business and HR leaders alike becoming more open to candid feedback, and more receptive about how to work with it to make their organisations stronger.”
“The Voice of the Workplace” was sent to HR leaders, business leaders and consultants through the Northern California Human Resources Association (NCHRA), InsiderHub, and Executive Networks and over a two-week period of time from March 8-23, 2016.
Waggl also asked the open-ended question, “What is the most constructive way for organisations to handle negative feedback from employees?”
Here are the top three answers that were crowd-sourced with over 3,000 votes on Waggl:
1. “Provide a response to those giving feedback to indicate that it was heard and understood; then describe action to be taken -- this may include no action, but providing feedback indicates that the input was carefully considered. Further information may clarify the situation about which negative feedback occurred. Responses must be respectful, and not defensive.”
2. “Listen, understand the real issue, probe into further information if needed to fully understand, and then address the feedback directly, honestly, and in a timely manner. Then ask if that helps or if there is further negative feedback.”
3. “Acknowledge and address openly and honestly - be transparent whenever possible - communicate, communicate, communicate.”
By Guest Author Michael Papay
