Listen Up: How to Hear Your Employees Better

At LOCAL, we know there’s no such thing as a captive audience. We believe that internal audiences deserve to be won over just like your customers. And to do that, we have to start with listening.

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Listening to employees does a few things. First, it keeps employees engaged, which is good for retention, which—in turn—is good for business. Second, it surfaces concerns and perspectives leadership might not realize. Getting a frontline perspective can lead to new insights that can ultimately improve the business.

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But what does listening to employees look like in practice? We’ve gathered four practices you can implement to hear from your people. 

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Pulse Survey

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A short survey, sent out to employees regularly (monthly, quarterly) helps you get a sense of your organization’s pulse. While some questions may change from survey to survey, keep a few baseline questions consistent so you can evaluate changes and trends over time. 

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Tips

• Keep it short (5-15 questions). 
• Share enlightening findings with your organization, outlining actions the company will take to address gaps. 

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Listening Tour

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Designate a period of time (a week or a month), in which a key leader hosts listening sessions with employees across the company. This allows for you to ask employees questions, hear their concerns, and identify barriers. 

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Tips

• The leader should come prepared with questions. 
• Listening sessions can be virtual or in person, with the participants’ director absent from the meetings to encourage candor. 

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Standing Check-Ins 

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Designate time in your regular meetings to hear from your team. Allocate time in your agenda for asking your employees to share what’s on their mind or opportunities. 

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Tips

• To aid in collaboration, ask substantial, cross-functional questions like “what could we be doing differently to improve the customer experience?”
• Carve out time for the personal with questions like “can you share a highlight and a challenge from your week?”

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Suggestion Box

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Creating a mechanism for anonymous feedback gives employees the opportunity to speak their mind without fear or repercussions.  

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Tips

• An online form can serve as a virtual suggestion box
• Assign one person or a committee to compile and review suggestions and present them to leadership. 

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Regardless of how you go about listening to your employees, there are a few overarching principles to keep in mind: 

Listen: Ask questions. Don’t respond to the answers immediately. 

Repeat: To make sure you understand, repeat back what you heard in your own words, and ask the employees if you heard them correctly. 

Review: Synthesize the feedback you received and decide which pieces of feedback you’ll act on and how.

Act: Listening is not the end game. It’s what you do with what you learn that matters. 

Respond: Close the loop with employees by sharing what you did with their feedback. If you decide not to act on their feedback, let them know why not.