Data is the key to making intelligent business decisions in any industry.
Companies frequently guide their choices by collecting insights from market reports and customers. But it’s becoming increasingly important for leaders to consider the employee’s voice too.
Currently, the financial industry suffers from a significant skill shortage, with more than 5 vacancies available and unfilled for every 100 jobs. By listening to employees and their insights, businesses can improve their chances of retaining existing talent and even attracting new staff members.
After all, one of the key reasons people leave organisations is because they feel they’re not being respected, listened to, or managed correctly.
Leveraging the power of employee feedback is one of the easiest ways for managers to develop, engage, and retain their high-performing teams in 2023 and beyond.
Why is Employee Feedback Important?
Employee feedback is crucial to any company’s communication, collaboration, and growth strategies. It helps to maintain a positive and productive work environment while allowing business leaders to keep their fingers on the pulse of their team’s experiences.
While many employers focus on consistently delivering constructive feedback to their financial staff, it’s important to remember that feedback is a two-way street. Just as the insights you give your employees can help them to become more productive and efficient, the information they share with you can improve your decision-making, enhance company culture, and empower innovation.
Collecting feedback from finance employees ensures you can:
- Identify blind spots: Feedback can show you potential frictions and issues that are disrupting the work environment and causing employee turnover. It can even help you to determine areas where employees may need additional development or education.
- Improve management: Many employees leave bad managers, not bad jobs. With this in mind, it’s important to ensure your management styles effectively motivate and engage your staff members in the finance space.
- Increase engagement: Showing staff members their insights are respected and appreciated increases employee buy-in and commitment. It helps staff members to believe they have a direct impact on the functioning of the business.
- Reduces issues: Feedback can show you where key problems lie in your business so you can make meaningful changes. For instance, you may discover a disconnect between different members of your finance team that can be resolved with regular meetings.
- Boosts employer branding: Collecting and responding to feedback demonstrates a commitment to listening to your employees and improving their experience. This will make you more attractive to new talent when you’re ready to hire.
How to Collect Employee Feedback
The first step in using employee feedback correctly is collecting useful insights from your team. Fortunately, there are several ways to gather useful information. To begin, companies should ensure their employees know the benefits of sharing feedback and eliminate any barriers that might prevent open communication.
For instance, if staff members are concerned about sharing negative feedback, provide them with the opportunity to share anonymous insights. Consider motivating staff to share their concerns by thanking everyone who shares their opinions in a group meeting or planning session.
Other ways to improve your chances of collecting useful insights include:
- Making feedback easy to give: Make it simple for your team members to share their thoughts with your company. Have a dedicated manager with an open-door policy who’s always ready to collect and respond to feedback. Host regular one-on-one meetings with staff members to evaluate their feelings about the company. Consider creating an online anonymous environment where remote, hybrid, and in-office staff can share their thoughts.
- Ask meaningful questions: Nurture open communication and valuable responses by asking team members valuable questions. When reviewing a team member’s performance with them, ask them what your team could do to support them better or whether they need any tools or solutions to assist with their work. Ask them how they feel about your leadership strategy or what they would change if given the opportunity.
- Observe non-verbal cues: Pay attention to non-verbal signs of feedback among your employees. Ask yourself whether certain people seem more nervous or withdrawn during meetings. Consider whether some of your team members might be showing signs of burnout, and arrange to meet with them to discuss their work practices.
- Run regular surveys: Employee surveys are an excellent way to gain feedback from your team. You can send the same survey to your staff at the start and finish of each project to measure their experiences and challenges. Make sure you ask open-ended questions in your surveys, such as “What were the main problems you faced with this task”, so your team members can provide valuable insights.
- Be a positive example: Share your own feedback with team members about the issues you faced during projects and how you believe the situation could be improved. When staff members share their thoughts, whether they’re positive or negative, make sure you thank them for their input.
How to Use Feedback from Your Finance Team
Collecting effective insights from your finance team is just the first step in successfully optimising and improving your business operations. You also need to be able to use feedback effectively.
Start by training managers and supervisors to listen actively to their employees whenever they share useful thoughts and opinions. Leaders shouldn’t interrupt or change the subject when staff are talking and should ask follow-up questions to help them better understand the concerns voiced. This will help to create a more supportive company culture where feedback can thrive.
When evaluating insights from team members, make sure you take both positive and negative thoughts into account. In some cases, feedback can be neither directly positive nor negative. For instance, an employee might say they appreciate being able to communicate regularly with remote staff members over messaging but would like the option for video conferencing too.
Once you’ve collected plenty of information from your teams:
- Look for patterns: Determine whether any statements or suggestions are given more often than others. For instance, are your employees consistently commenting about difficulties using their accounting software? If so, it may be time to upgrade.
- Create plans: Based on the insights you collect from your employees, work with them to create strategies for implementing changes. Get your staff members involved in making significant changes to your processes, and follow up with them to ensure you’ve solved whatever problem they were facing.
- Consistently act on feedback: Always demonstrate your commitment to acting on the thoughts your employees share with you. This doesn’t always mean directly giving staff what they want, but it does mean finding a solution that works for everyone. For instance, if staff want more flexible schedules, you could experiment with four-day work weeks and hybrid working, then discuss what works best as a team. Thanks,
Thanks,
Rachel
About Rebus Financial Recruitment
Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, ranging from various organisations, including SMEs, to large PLCs.
We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we get to the heart of employer and employee needs, and, in doing so, we match the two perfectly. Contact one of our team today to find out more, or you can call us on 01282 930930.
