Seeking Advice on Creating an Employee Feedback Form: What Should We Include?

Dear All, I want to create a feedback form for employees so that we can learn more about them and their feedback for the company. Can you please suggest what should be included in the form, or can anyone share a similar form if you have it for reference?

Dear S Anjali,

You can conduct an Employee Satisfaction Survey (ESS) to collect feedback in an organized manner. Adequate material on ESS is available on the internet; you may download the questions and modify them according to your requirements. However, please note that ESS always reveals sticky points, and its results could be surprising. Secondly, post-survey actions are important. If the ESS is conducted merely for the sake of it and if the employees do not find visible improvements, they could be disappointed.

Departmental Feedback Challenges

However, the ESS is at a higher level. What about the departments? What happens in the department may not be accurately captured in the ESS. To overcome this challenge, you can train the HODs on "How to Create a Culture of Feedback?" A culture of feedback requires learning how to give feedback and how to receive feedback. While giving feedback, the HODs are not expected to push their ideas through the throats of their juniors. Feedback should be given for a specific purpose, and after receiving it, the subordinate should not lose his/her motivation.

Creating a Culture of Upward Communication

Your question concerns how to obtain feedback. To support this, I would like to suggest you create a culture of upward communication. This is because, in many companies, the flow of communication is from top to down and not often from bottom to top. Unless there is a communication grid where the free flow of communication takes place upward, downward, and sideways, the culture of feedback cannot be developed.

Employee Suggestions Program

Taking feedback from the employees may have noble intentions; however, it is a high-level activity. Before that comes having an organized employee suggestions program. Do you have one? Do employees volunteer to give suggestions? If yes, then what is the suggestion per employee per year ratio? Forget about feedback. If the employees are reluctant or nonchalant about giving suggestions, then it shows a lack of apathy or even a lack of trust. Once I saw the company's employees saying, "The big bosses take fat salaries. They are paid to give suggestions? Why should I give suggestions? Why should I break my head?" Do you think a feedback program can work in such a company?

If you wish to have further assistance, you can contact me.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Dear Anjali,

As per the post, you want to know more about their families and feedback from the employees about the company too. Therefore, you need to design two forms: one for employees' history and another for feedback. The feedback form is to learn more about them and their feedback for the company. Can you please suggest what should be included in the form, or can anyone share a similar form if you have one for reference?

Appreciate your efforts. Good intentions, good work. Here, the major issues are related to secrecy. Definitely, almost everyone will have something to say, whether it be grievances, complaints, suggestions for improvements, or addressing prevalent situations in the workplace. It is important to consider how to address secrecy, which is an essential aspect. It's obvious that many middle-level and lower-level employees will have a lot to express openly, provided that their feedback is kept confidential while sincere remedial action is expected to be taken. What happens if you are unable or not in the appropriate position to take necessary action?

If the feedback received raises sensitive issues, such as sexual harassment between male and female colleagues, it will be a challenging task to either find solutions or eliminate such occurrences. The question remains: when these issues come to light, are you able to escalate them to the appropriate levels for the action they deserve?

Designing a format may not be difficult, but what comes next? I suggest that you carefully consider the details beforehand. Please continue.

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