Employee Voice Survey
How To Support Employees Responsible For Employee Voice Feedback
We talk a lot about supporting our people here at The Happiness Index, but what about the people who are responsible for the organisational support? Ensure these people have all the tools and resources they need to do their job AND feel supported themselves with our 5 helpful tips.
What Is Employee Voice?
Employee Voice (EV) is a part of The Happiness Index platform that is always open for use, and employees can use it to say whatever they are thinking and feeling, whether it’s positive or negative. The positive comments can be great to read, but the negative can be quite tough.
Impact On Employees Responsible For Reading & Responding To Employee Voice?
If a company uses EV, it will have one or a few people responsible for monitoring the comments that come through and responding if the feedback loop is open. We want to provide some guidance from our own HR team on how an organisation can support the employees who have this responsibility.
Some of the negative comments that can come through EV can be around an individual’s mental health, their personal stresses, their workplace stresses, issues in relationships, things they are worried about - the list can go on.
Reading these comments can be difficult because it can make someone worry for the health and safety of a colleague, learn things about people in the organisation, trigger a personal issue, among other things. It can also create a feeling of helplessness, particularly if the feedback loop has not been enabled by the person making the comment meaning a response cannot be sent to them.
What Can An Organisation Do To Support?
Here are a few examples of things an organisation can put in place or suggest to support the person or people reading and responding to EV:
Make sure the line of support is clear for the person reading and responding to EV, and reinforce they should not carry the burden themselves and speak up if they need help.
Ensure the person is aware of the other support they have available, such as an employee assistance programme (EAP).
Support the respondent to do Mental Health First Aid training or similar, so they have tools they can use to support through their feedback.
Provide guidelines and examples of responses, for example having a list of support networks they can offer through the feedback loop like the Samaritans.
Encourage the person responding to take some time before putting in a reply to avoid an overly emotional reaction, if it’s safe to wait.
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About The Happiness Index
The Happiness Index helps organisations measure the key employee engagement AND happiness drivers to power their people strategy.
Our unique platform offers the products, insights and tools to shine a light on your cultural health and empower management to drive thriving cultures.
Our neuroscience-based pre-built surveys measure the full employee experience - from onboarding to exit to empower and enable organisations to understand their people and create data-led action plans.
