The Conversations feature can help you gain clarification on issues and ideas for solutions, as well as create a deeper level of connection with your employees - while maintaining employee anonymity.
To build trust and to maximize the efficacy of this feature, here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you create and maintain meaningful Conversations:
DOs:
- Acknowledge and express gratitude for their feedback
- Ask for suggestions on how to improve
- Look for a common issue
DON'Ts:
- Never ask an employee to reveal themselves
- Do not challenge employees
DOs
Acknowledge and express gratitude for their feedback
Knowing that you're being listened to is an essential part of any conversation. Simple, but powerful acknowledgements include:
- Thanking them for sharing;
- Letting them know it's a great idea;
- You're working on a solution; or
- Simply agreeing with what they said.
Ask for suggestions/ideas on how to improve
People appreciate when they feel that you care about their ideas. Actively engaging employees to provide solution-oriented feedback is a win-win situation. You can encourage them by saying something like "Thanks for raising this issue. I would like to hear your thoughts on how we can solve this. Would you care to share some ideas here?"
Try to discover whether this is a common issue
Sometimes it takes an individual to flag something before you can discover if this is a common problem that many on the team care about. If you feel this may be the case, you could respond with: "Thanks for raising this, it’s something that I’d like to address. In doing so, it would help me to know if you think others on the team feel this way. Could you share your thoughts here?" Note that the response is purposely phrased as a question. We often see higher reply rates in conversations when the manager poses a question rather than a statement.
DON'Ts
Never ask an employee to reveal her/him-self
Perked! is a platform built on the foundation that employees can provide anonymous feedback. To ask an employee to reveal who they are to you is a serious breach of that trust. The most likely response from an employee would be to avoid answering future surveys.
Do not challenge employees
If a member of your team raises something that you disagree with, Perked! is not a good place to argue with them. It’s simply not a healthy discussion to have online - let alone when one of the parties is anonymous. When this happens, employees tend not to respond and will refrain from providing comments or feedback in the future.
In these situations, the best response is to wait for your next team meeting before saying to the group that you noticed "a few people have raised something on Perked! that you’d like to clarify as there seems to be a misunderstanding". Then go on to share their point of view. The key is to not single out an individual by saying “someone wrote on Perked!...".
Often, it takes communication and patience for employees to get used to the idea of receiving responses to their comments. It’s important to take the time to introduce this feature to your employees and let them know Why it is an important part of listening and actioning on their feedback.