The ultimate guide to collecting employee feedback

You want motivated, high-performing, loyal employees. Building this type of workforce takes time, but it’s not as ambitious as you might think. Finding the right people starts with regularly asking for employee feedback. The answers you get will help you make meaningful changes to your workplace culture, employee satisfaction, and employer brand.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to build an effective employee feedback strategy, whether you’re responsible for 10 or 10,000 employees. Keep reading for insights into today’s workforce, lots of employee feedback examples, and tools and resources to get started today.

Employee feedback is the opinions, comments, and information employees give about their job, coworkers, workplace, and overall employee experience. Businesses, organizations, or HR teams collect and act on employee feedback to:

Because there are various dimensions to the employee experience, many organizations implement an employee feedback program. This is a more formal process where HR teams and other stakeholders create a plan for collecting and acting on employee feedback. Effective employee feedback management involves setting goals, measuring progress, and making timely improvements.

Our April 2024 Workforce Survey showed that over one-third of workers have seriously considered quitting their jobs in the last three months. “Quiet quitters” who, according to Gallup, make up about 50% of the U.S. workforce. Here’s what else recent feedback has revealed about today’s employees: 

Maybe some of these insights have already got you thinking about improvements you can make to your own organization. However, your employees likely have unique experiences and perspectives. By collecting employee feedback, you can tailor organizational improvements that greatly impact employee retention.

Use employee feedback to inform your employee value proposition (EVP) in a competitive job market. By connecting your employees with your company values, you can foster a healthy work culture. A strong EVP and happy employees will improve employer branding, making it easier to attract high-quality candidates.

It might seem like common sense: employees who are more engaged and invested in their work will do better overall. That’s more than enough reason to make employees feel empowered and like they can contribute to company goals. But if you need more convincing, Gallup’s same 2023 report estimates that low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion dollars.

The more engaged your employees are, the better your customer experience. Highly engaged employees are more likely to spend extra time solving customer problems or pain points, whether through service or product improvements. Employees who truly care about their jobs will also be more likely to communicate customer feedback and issues to teammates or coworkers who can address them.

Collecting employee feedback is a great first step towards attracting and retaining employees. Next, you should establish some processes around employee feedback management, which will help streamline every part of the employee experience.

Employee engagement and satisfaction start before your employees do. Regularly collect feedback from job applicants and interview candidates to ensure everyone is treated fairly. When you measure and track the candidate experience, you better understand your employer brand reputation and what you need to do to attract top talent.

Collect employee feedback from new hires to streamline your onboarding and employee training. Ask employees about the effectiveness of your training materials. See how engaging your onboarding is. Find out if employees feel supported throughout the process. And use interactive online quizzes to drive home company values, protocols, and policies. Even the scores you get give you insight into how well your onboarding is going.

Implement an employee performance management system to create a culture of feedback and transparency. Ask managers and employees to conduct self-reviews, too, so you can identify opportunities to help them grow or advance in their careers. You can also track team performance to see which teams need additional support or processes put into place.

You know collecting employee feedback is important. But if you want to truly make an impact, it’s a good idea to work with other people and teams who can help collect feedback, analysis, and action. Before you get too far in your planning, consider who you need to align with, starting at the top. Here are some of the stakeholders you should consider and the role they’ll play in your employee feedback program.

More than one in five (22%) HR pros say a top challenge for collecting employee feedback is needing more leadership support. Leadership sets business priorities and often sets the tone for workplace culture. If they don’t think employee feedback is vital to recruiting and retention, you won’t get far in your efforts. Here are a few ways to build a convincing case for a company-wide employee feedback program.

Although a happy, productive workforce should be compelling in and of itself, you need to connect employee engagement and the customer experience directly. Present a business case that outlines the potential return on investment (ROI) of implementing an employee feedback program. Here are a few points to consider.

Your organization likely has customer or employee retention goals, among many others. Find out what these are, then explain how your employee feedback program can help you achieve these goals. We’ll take you through how to do that in the next chapter.

To drive the point home, share case studies and examples of how other companies have benefitted from similar feedback programs. For example, we use employee feedback at SurveyMonkey to drive meaningful changes to our workplace culture, diversity initiatives, and more.

We refined our manager training using employee feedback. We asked leaders across the company what we could do to help them be more effective in their roles. The feedback we received helped us prioritize two new trainings for our employees: a Management 101 course for new leaders and a more advanced curriculum for our more seasoned managers on how they can create high-performing teams.

There are many stories like this out there. Talk to people in your network or search for case studies that can help you prove your point. These stories will inspire your leadership to invest in a feedback program, too.

Before you invest a lot of time and resources into a full-blown employee feedback program, consider a pilot program. Starting on a smaller scale can help you gather initial data and test tools and pinpoint any issues with collecting employee feedback.

Your pilot program could be as simple as:

At each step of this process, observe what’s working well and what's not and make adjustments. By starting small, you can relieve pressure and create the blueprint for a more extensive program that’ll stand the test of time.

Collecting employee feedback in and of itself can have a positive impact on your workforce. It shows employees you care about their experience and are willing to improve. That said, you should set goals and meet specific objectives to make sure your program is having an impact. Here are some examples of goals, objectives, and key performance indicators (KPIs) you can use to measure your success.

You can collect feedback on any part of the employee experience, including:

For a holistic picture of the employee experience, you can collect employee feedback in different channels and data formats:

The employee lifecycle includes every interaction an employee has with your organization, including the experiences of potential and former employees.

Collect feedback at each stage of the employee lifecycle, from recruiting to offboarding. The insights you gather will help you change your workplace and culture to attract and retain high performers.

Get to know what candidates think about you as a potential employer. Their feedback can help you strengthen your employer brand, better understand your candidate pool, and enhance the recruiting experience.

You can collect feedback by sending potential employees a candidate experience survey. Send this survey to anyone who interviews with your company, including those who don’t end up working for you. This will help you understand if interviewees feel they're being treated well throughout the interview process. Here are a few examples of the questions you can ask candidates:

Once you hire an employee, the next step is to onboard them. Make sure you’re getting them up to speed as quickly as possible and that they’re retaining crucial information about your policies, organization, and job duties. Here’s how employee feedback can strengthen your onboarding:

Streamline your onboarding process. The more quickly you onboard employees, the more quickly they become productive. Use a new hire onboarding survey to understand which parts of the onboarding process could improve. Ask questions like:

Improve your training materials. Whether your onboarding and training is in-person or remote, determine if your presentations and activities are engaging and informative. Send attendees a new hire training quiz to see how well employees retained and understood your onboarding information. Ask questions like:

Set up your new hires for success. Onboarding doesn’t end after the first couple of weeks. Ask for employee feedback at regular intervals. 

Send a 30-day onboarding survey to understand the effectiveness of your initial employee onboarding. Ask questions like:

Next, send a 60-day onboarding survey to check in with your new employee. This will help them feel supported while you’re also checking in on the continued effectiveness of your onboarding. Ask questions like:

Finally, send a 90-day onboarding survey to get final employee feedback on their overall onboarding experience. This survey will help you understand how well a new hire has settled into their role, if they feel empowered, and start a conversation around growth opportunities. Ask questions like:

Are you providing growth opportunities for your employees? The HR professionals we surveyed said that career advancement opportunities are the second most important factor when candidates consider a new job (44%). Here are a few ways to use employee feedback to ensure you’re offering enough growth opportunities.

Offer a robust learning and development program. Professional growth is important to employees and offering relevant activities and content. Use a professional development survey to ask questions like:

Make sure employees are satisfied with their career growth. Similarly, you want to be sure your employees feel they can advance in their careers. You can also send them a career development survey, which asks employees to rate their satisfaction:

Prioritize self-evaluation and growth conversations. You can also use surveys to formalize regular conversations around career growth and job performance. For example, this employee review survey is a self-evaluation focused on growth, impact, and goals. When you send this survey to employees, they use feedback to drive an essential conversation with their managers. Questions in this survey include:

You’ve invested a lot into recruiting, onboarding, and developing a solid workforce. Now you’ve got to make sure they won’t leave you for another opportunity. At this stage, check in with employees to see if they’re engaged, fulfilled, and happy with how things are going.

Boost employee engagement. How motivated and invested are your employees? Use a work engagement survey to measure employee morale. Send this survey regularly so you can make targeted improvements to the employee experience and track engagement over time. In this survey, employees respond to statements like:

Avoid employee burnout. In recent years, burnout has become a real issue for many employees. Check-in with your employees to see how they’re feeling. Then, see what you can do to alleviate some of their stress. Send a work-life balance survey that asks:

Foster an inclusive work culture. The best way to attract diverse and talented people is to build a workplace culture that prioritizes belonging and inclusion. But having a diverse workforce isn’t enough. One study found that 60% of workers have witnessed or potentially witnessed microaggressions in the workplace. 

Your company must check in with employees regularly to ensure they feel supported. When you send employees a belonging and inclusion survey, you’re taking the first step toward identifying and addressing inequities at work. Ask questions like:

Offer competitive benefits and compensation. Compensation packages are a big factor in retaining talent in a highly competitive job market. In a recent SurveyMonkey study, 54% of HR pros ranked compensation and benefits as an area where companies must invest in their employees. Use a compensation and benefits survey for answers to questions like:

The end of an employee’s time with your company can be as important as the beginning. When an employee leaves your company, finding out why is essential. Exit surveys help you build a more attractive and fruitful culture so current and future employees will stay longer and feel more engaged. Use an exit interview survey that asks questions like:

How likely are employees to recommend your organization as a great workplace? The answer has become the industry standard for measuring employee loyalty. Getting your eNPS, or employee Net Promoter Score, is a quick way to understand employee engagement and their investment in your organization. Here are some tips and best practices for collecting employee feedback with an eNPS survey.

According to our research, almost half (48%) of HR pros say that DEI has greatly impacted hiring top candidates. This is even higher at companies where HR leads (55%). To gauge the inclusiveness of your workplace culture, send DEI surveys to your employees. The employee feedback you get will help you understand what you’re doing well and where there’s room for growth.

When employees are engaged with their work, they’re more fulfilled and more motivated. An engaged employee who feels aligned with your organization’s goals not only performs better, they help attract top talent, and stays longer. Use these surveys to measure different dimensions of employee engagement:

Benefits or perks may have gotten even more important in recent years. According to a Forbes report, 40% of employers think workers leave their jobs to find employment that offers better benefits. And one in 10 workers say they’d rather take a pay cut to access better benefits. How satisfied are employees with the benefits your company offers? Use these survey templates to find out.

Sometimes, you need to send employees longer surveys, especially if your organization only holds formal reviews or assessments once or twice a year. However, more and more companies are using pulse surveys to quickly capture employee feedback and track sentiment outside regular feedback cycles.

When you send a survey, you’re asking employees to take time away from their daily work to provide thoughtful feedback. Here are some best practices to make people more likely to take your surveys and give you accurate responses.

Many of these employee feedback surveys touch on sensitive topics. Employees and job candidates might hesitate to give candid feedback if they fear it will impact their careers or hiring.

To make employees feel more comfortable, let them know that their responses will be anonymous and only be used in aggregate. You can send anonymous employee surveys by enabling anonymous responses in your survey settings.

Like fashion trends and baked goods, employee feedback will go stale. You'll want to collect feedback regularly to keep up with changing sentiments and proactively address employee engagement.

Many organizations conduct performance reviews at least once a year. These can be peer and manager feedback surveys, self-evaluation surveys, 360 reviews, and more. You can also send an employee engagement survey at the same time or ask questions about employee satisfaction in your performance review surveys.

Send pulse surveys outside of your regular employee feedback cycle. This will help you pinpoint any issues that come up between performance reviews. You can also do a quick pulse survey after a significant change or company-wide event to see how you’re doing.

You’ve got your employee feedback. Now, it’s time to categorize what you’ve found into overarching themes. And get a better idea of where you stand before you decide how to move forward.

Part of understanding higher-level themes is drilling down into your data. What you learn will help you speak to those themes and tell your story.

Once you’ve performed your analysis and found key insights, it’s time to turn those into action. Here are a few things to consider:

Part of your action plan should be reporting back to employees on what you learned and how you’re addressing their feedback. This shows employees that you value what they have to say. And you appreciate the time they spent giving you thoughtful feedback.

Establish a standard process for performance reviews or individual conversations that ensures people deliver feedback respectfully. You can equip managers with a framework that’ll help them hold performance reviews and conduct feedback sessions. Keep reading for some examples of employee feedback that’ll help you conduct fruitful conversations.

Remember that collecting employee feedback isn’t a one-time process. You'll need to regularly gather feedback to boost employee engagement, growth, and your bottom line.

Be the employer that everyone wants to work for. Get started in minutes with one of our employee feedback survey templates. Or learn how SurveyMonkey can help you boost employee engagement.

Net Promoter Score and NPS are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.