4 reasons to actively listen to your employees (and how an employee survey can help!)

As a company that has built a reputation for delivering powerful employee insights through our bespoke employee survey services, we know only too well how important it is for businesses to listen to their workforce actively. You may think that listening to your employees is a no-brainer. However, there are still many businesses whose senior management makes business-critical decisions without any input from those on the ground floor. When employed for our employee survey services we often see that this is the case, and the business in question is suffering because of it.

Through our many years of employee research and delivering employee insights through our pulse surveys, 360 feedback surveys and general staff surveys, we have found that one of the main contributing factors to a negative or unproductive workforce is the employees’ belief that their voices are not being heard.

Giving your employees a voice

There are numerous benefits to a business in actively listening to their employees, and where possible using that information to make positive changes that can contribute to increased productivity and a generally more positive working environment. A bespoke employee survey, such as a pulse survey, is the perfect platform to give employees a voice, which when analysed professionally can give you the employee insights you need to drive your business forward.

Here are 4 powerful reasons why it’s essential to regularly listen to your employees.

Active listening builds trust

Trust is everything in business, and nowhere is this more important than between senior management and the general workforce. By actively listening to your employees and genuinely making them feel heard, not only do you help build that essential trust, but you also ensure employees are more aligned with the business’s overall goals, which will help contribute to the business’s ongoing success.

An employee survey, such as a pulse survey, is a great way of allowing employees a voice on certain issues, offering anonymity whilst recognising their feedback is both wanted and necessary, which in turn further cements the trust within the organisation.

Active listening improves productivity

It has been proven that an employee who feels like their opinions and suggestions are taken on board are more productive in the workplace. In fact, in this study which was conducted on over 4,000 employees across the globe, a massive 74% reported they felt they were more effective and productive in their work when they were actively heard by senior management.

A regular employee survey will ensure employees are being heard, leading to increased productivity in the workplace. And increased employee productivity equals increased business success.

Active listening resolves conflicts

Different opinions on how things should be done in the workplace, or how people should conduct themselves, lead to internal conflicts of varying degrees in nearly all workplaces. You could almost say they are inevitable at some point, regardless of internal training, communication workshops or even cultural initiatives.

By actively and regularly listening to your employees you are aware of potential situations and conflicts developing, helping you resolve them before they become a serious issue.

Active listening improves retention

One of the biggest challenges businesses face today is employee retention. There may be underlying reasons why quality staff leave a company that could be picked up on and acted upon through active listening. By regularly deploying a staff survey you can gain incredibly powerful insights into how your employees feel about the company, their role, their colleagues and their overall professional well-being.

By fully understanding these employee insights you will have the tools to make the positive changes that will help you retain your top talent.

A bespoke employee survey is the perfect tool for listening to your employees

So as you can see, actively listening to your employees (and recognising the fact) is imperative to the ongoing success of a business. In this blog, we have outlined the core benefits of making your employees feel heard. But if you want to learn more about how our bespoke employee survey services, including our range of staff surveys, pulse surveys and 360 feedback surveys can assist you in really listening to your employees, contact our professional team.

We will work closely with you to discover which employee survey would suit your organisation best, and then develop a bespoke staff survey based on your goals and objectives. Once conducted, we will collate all of the collected information and deliver it in an easy-to-understand report, giving you the employee insights you need to drive real change.