The Impact of Feedback: How Reviews Lead to Change in the Workplace
Just a few years ago, businesses had a difficult time finding out how their employees felt about their positions, their management team, and overall, their company. Of course, there might be tidbits of information heard over the water cooler, between employee’s chatting in the restroom, or even an “anonymous survey” hosted by HR. But if owners wanted honest, unfiltered, candid responses — there wasn’t really anywhere to go. This left owners and managers in the dark about their company’s true culture, working conditions, and loyalty of their staff.
Like millions of other things, the internet, more specifically, social media platforms, have changed the ambiguity and awkwardness of leaving honest feedback. If you were to put in all effort of social media marketing for your business, and go to the extent of buying views and shares from places like themarketingheaven.com and still find undeserving honest feedback, then it’s a telltale sign that you should adapt a different approach.
Do you want to learn what your employees really think? Business owners, be warned. In some cases, you may learn more than you barged for. After all, the online world can be a wild place. But it’s also a captivating place, a gold mine of information for your company. Yes, you may come across an unpleasant review from a disgruntled, ex-employee, but many others offer constructive feedback and express endearing stories regarding their personal experience.
Start by reviewing your company’s landing page on Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Google, or Indeed. You’ll have a new insight regarding employee’s opinions on their work/life balance, senior management, compensation/benefits, and their growth opportunities.
Why is this important?
This feedback may have an impact on whether job seekers decide to submit their resume to your company. Positive employee reviews will encourage top-notch talent to apply! Negative reviews may discourage those same applicants. Additionally, these reviews will have an impact on your local search engine rankings and could affect landing a new client or customer.
How to encourage feedback and implement change
1. Educate
Shaunda Zilich, Global Employment Brand Leader at GE says:
“Educate current employees on what candidates are seeing out there before they walk into the company. Let them know the numbers (traffic, reach, engagement) on reviews (example: over 80% of candidates now look at reviews before making a decision on employment). I am still amazed at how many of our employees are not aware of these sites or don’t realize how popular they are.”
2. Encourage
Phil Strazzula, Founder of NextWave Hire says:
“Many times reviews on employee sites are from disgruntled people since there isn’t a mechanism to get reviews from the typical employees in your company (hotels have done a great job of getting their patrons to leave reviews on TripAdvisor by emailing everyone after their stay, so it’s not just the people who had bed bugs). So, my advice to companies is not to over think it, and simply remind everyone in the company every 6-12 months that reviews are a good way to attract talent and if they have a few extra minutes to please take time to write something.”
3. Remember: Timing is everything
As mentioned above, angry employees are typically the first to leave a review. These individuals may feel as if something is unfair, and they want their opinion to be heard. On the opposite side of the spectrum, individuals overcome with joy and thankfulness typically want to share their story with others as well.
Will Staney is the Founder & Principal Consultant at Proactive Talent Strategies and says:
“The idea is to get your employees to review the company around various company milestones. One of the ways I’ve done this in the past as a TA leader is to incorporate Glassdoor into onboarding practices by asking employees in each new hire class to leave a review of their interview experience.”
“Other ways I’ve done this is while congratulating an employee on their work anniversary (“Congrats on 1 year at ABC Company! Now that you’re a veteran here, do you mind sharing your experience working here on Glassdoor?”) or when someone is promoted (“Congrats on your promotion! As an example of an employee that is truly making an impact and exuding our values, we would love if you’d take a moment to share your experience and what’s made you successful here on Glassdoor).”
“Finally, as a follow up to a company event you could send an email out encouraging employees to upload photos from the event to the company Glassdoor page. You might find that while they are there, they leave a review as well.”
4. Implement Change
If change is needed, discuss it as a team and formulate a plan. Having a plan that involves people early on is important. Be transparent about the upcoming changes; define the process and desired outcomes and share this with your team. Convey that their participation and ongoing feedback is critical for the success of your change initiative.
At The Temp Connection, every review is shared with our team. We look for patterns and themes in our reputation. If a specific person, process or outcome is mentioned in a review, we take the time to sit down and discuss the presented concerns or to celebrate whatever/whoever was mentioned. This gives our team confidence that what we’re doing is working, or that we need to redirect and fine tune our approach.
We sincerely hope you can utilize these tips in your business practice, and hope your experience with The Temp Connection has been positive.
We’d appreciate you taking the time to review us! Click here to be rerouted to our Google page.
Elliana Vaughn joined The Temp Connection team in February 2017. She currently serves The Temp Connection as our Sales & Marketing Coordinator and a Recruiter.
She can be reached via email at elliana@thetempconnection.com.
