Assessing Your Workplace and Finding Underlying Issues the Right Way

As someone who helps run or who runs a business, knowing the underlying causes of problems and workplace issues is one of the topmost priorities you have. Despite how large or prominent some organizations may be, there surely exists issues that trouble the employees, and ultimately, the organization itself. To get to the root cause of issues, there are two methodologies that are quite effective—employee feedback surveys and 360 feedback surveys. Want to learn more? Well then, read along to find out the right way of going about it.

But before we do that, you have to fully understand what these two surveys are. First of all is the employee feedback survey which is pretty straightforward. The employees of a company take part in surveys designed to find out causes of issues. This ultimately helps management to take care of the issues and rejuvenate employee engagement.

On the other end is the 360-degree feedback survey. A 360-degree feedback survey is also performed by the employees of a company, but the respondents’ identities are anonymous. In other words, no one knows who is saying what in the final responses that you collect. Anonymity helps the employees feel more comfortable answering more freely and honestly. However, if the results from a regular employee feedback survey and a 360-degree feedback survey are very different, especially with the latter one being more negative, then you need to understand that your employees find it difficult to speak up – which is a huge problem that needs addressing before any other problem that you find through the surveys.

There are best practices when it comes to asking employees about the workplace. You need to be emotionally connective, talk more about feeling (to understand how they feel), and avoid being confrontational. Doing a few wrongs might be actually destructive as you won’t be able to get respondents to answer honestly.

In a nutshell, both employee feedback survey and 360 feedback survey can help you gather the much-needed insights that can be used to improve the quality of the culture in the workplace. You should strive to take a deep dive into the behavior of the employees to understand the why instead of solely focusing in on the superficial metrics.