Making The Most of Your Data Using Our 'Close The Feedback Loop' Tool

You can respond to feedback via the tool on any of our surveys but it’s particularly powerful on Employee Voice. It empowers you to dive deeper into the specific feedback as and when it comes up. Many of our customers are using it to gain greater insight, facilitate authentic conversations and dive deeper into their always on listening strategy. 

Here are five ways our Close The Feedback Loop tool could help you make the most of your workplace happiness and employee engagement data. 

1. Empower Your People

This tool is all about empowering the individual to give feedback on their terms. By offering them the choice of a follow-up to ensure their meaning is fully understood. Some people do not want to continue the conversation, they merely want to vent or get something off their chest. That’s their choice. 

Closing the feedback loop is optional and the power to toggle it on and off lies with the respondent. Ultimately, giving the power to your people. 

By making feedback optional and anonymous, you’re showing your people that they can choose when and what feedback they give. This touches on our neuroscience themes of freedom and specifically autonomy.

2. Build Trust

Because our Close The Feedback Loop tool maintains complete anonymity, it helps to build trust. You’re able to gain further context and information while allowing your people to stay anonymous - thus answering confidently without fear of any repercussions. By responding directly, you can also build trust as people will be immediately aware of the care and attention being paid to their feedback. 

In fact, our Close The Feedback Loop tool is an indicator of how much trust your people have in your feedback programme. If lots of people are enabling the tool and allowing you to reply to their feedback it demonstrates that they trust your organisation.

3. Improve Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is a bit of a buzzword at the moment, but we believe that it’s really key to building a feedback programme that works well for your organisation. For us psychological safety means that your people have a voice and can be heard. They should have no fear of negative repercussions when sharing their thoughts. Managers have a responsibility to take all feedback seriously and understand that even if they don't agree with it, it is someone else’s reality, and therefore must be taken seriously and dealt with sensitively. 

This is key because people will feel they can be authentic with their feedback - both positive and negative. This means that you can rely on your data to be accurate and reflective of people’s true thoughts and feelings. This means you can be sure that any actions you take as a result are going to be as impactful as possible. 

4. Strengthen Feedback Strategy Overall

One of the most powerful things about our Close The Feedback Loop tool is that it adds credibility to, strengthens and deepens your feedback strategy. This is because it really reaffirms that feedback is being used and actioned. You’re proving that feedback isn’t just a box-ticking exercise. 

When you’re in direct dialogue with your people, you can let them know what is being done with their feedback. You can signpost to existing programmes or initiatives which might be of use to them, or inform them of timelines on upcoming activity. This means that you’re able to prove the impact feedback is having on your people strategy directly. 

5. Get Direct Actionable Insight

By opening the conversation you can get extra information to help inform your decisions and action plans. Not only this, but you can also ask questions which will help you get input from your people about what they need from you to address their feedback. Similarly with positive feedback, you are able to get extra insight to help you share best practices around your organisation, and build on successes. 

This means that you can ensure that your programme of activity meets what your people truly want and need - without any assumptions. Meaning that you can focus your energies on areas that are going to give the biggest impact. Plus you can know that any changes you implement will be appreciated by your team.

On Or Off?

You have the choice of using our Close The Feedback Loop tool on any of our employee engagement or happiness surveys throughout the platform. We always recommend turning it on whenever you can. 

Yes, the tool takes time and commitment but more importantly it builds trust for the programme and provides context around feedback. Our platform makes it as easy as possible for you. All your comments which require feedback can be found in one place. All this without compromising anonymity. 

The tool can be switched on at any time, so if it isn’t the right time right away, you can choose to switch it on at a later date. Particularly when your HR or People team and your wider organisation have become more accustomed to our platform and regular feedback.

If you’re running a one-off survey, you will need to block out time to respond to any comments that come in. With always-on surveys, like Employee Voice, you will need to block off time regularly. It is important to manage expectations with your people. Let everyone know how frequently you will respond to feedback, who will be responding and whether everyone who wants one will get a personalised response within the platform. 

We recommend that you commit time each week for those with access to go through and reply to comments. Typically this would be the people team, but it could also be managers, leadership teams or other key stakeholders. 

Getting The Most Out of The Tool

Closing The Feedback Loop is one of the most unique things about our platform but in order to get the most out of the tool there are several steps we recommend taking. The first is to communicate clearly with your organisation that their feedback is completely anonymous, and also explain exactly how and when they can expect responses to their feedback. The second is to make sure you reply to feedback promptly. This doesn’t necessarily mean on the day you receive it, but certainly within a week or so. Finally, it’s important not to get disheartened too quickly. Although you may not get many responses right away, or conversely an overwhelming response rate - eventually things will settle out in time.