6 Ways to Use Employee Feedback to Boost Team Building in 2021

There are many reasons why anonymous feedback is important, chief among which are greater employee satisfaction and equality. However, different types of feedback can be used for different issues and topics.

For example, some companies stage regular feedback quarterly or bi-annually, asking employees to set their goals, assess their success in the previous period and provide feedback on their managers. This is good practice, but even anonymity doesn’t guarantee honesty simply because the majority of employees aren’t either engaged or disengaged.

The goal of every company should be to get their employees engaged, and that isn’t achieved by advertising equality via a feedback system. Other honest motives should also be employed.

As far as team building goes, there are three types of employees: those who love socializing, those who shun social events and those who are neutral but attend social events for fear of retribution.

This also goes to show that when uninspired, employees will not be more engaged than they have to be in order to keep their job.

Let’s see how feedback can be used to rectify the status quo and boost team building.

1. Ask questions that matter

Feedback, no matter how anonymous, won’t amount to much if employees don’t see how answering questions they deem irrelevant to their situation will help them in any way. Regardless of the goal of feedback, you should offer questions that matter.

Here are some examples:

• Have you received recognition for your engagement in last month’s project?
• Have you received recognition for your engagement in last month’s project?
• What would be your idea for a fun activity for the upcoming company gathering?
• Which projects are most satisfying for you?
• Describe what you did during the last month to make something better

As you can see, these questions are targeted and allow employees to provide their personal opinions about matters regarding their job, but also to put forth ideas for everyone to enjoy.

2. Encourage creativity and critical thinking

Feedback that asks for ideas that are later implemented sends a clear message to employees that their voice is being heard and valued. Of course, that doesn’t mean that every idea that you judge unsuccessful should be implemented, but learn to recognize good ideas and their implementation.

The examples are the ideas that address employees’ issues, especially urgent ones. But even more beneficial are the questions that ask employees about the kinds of solutions they’d like to see. Such questions encourage creativity and critical thinking and you can indeed learn much from their answers (both about your employees and about different approaches).

Even better –  choose the best ideas and have teams discuss them to boost team building and participation.

3. Consider gatherings

As for encouraging engagement, the abovementioned question about fun group activities should be considered seriously.

Even the finest of team building activities aren’t fun for everyone. That’s only to be expected; people are different, after all. However, feedback can help in that it provides you with insights about employees’ preferences.

Whenever many people are involved, compromises need to be made. Nobody really expects gatherings to be tailored to their wishes, but they do expect that at least some aspect of the matter will be pleasant for them.

Different people will participate in different events, but they can encourage the colleagues they’re friendly with to join them and have fun. This is a great way to boost team building.

4. Truth hurts but is preferred anyway

Let’s face it - nobody likes to hear others speaking ill of them. Interestingly, most people don’t want to hear any negative comments, even from people they don’t care about at all. Since a workplace is a place where random people come together to work, this issue can escalate and pose a serious problem to overall productivity, let alone teamwork.

That’s why feedback should include a couple of those “unpleasant” questions that can lead to dramatic rifts. Since anonymity protects employees from retribution, they may actually choose to be honest.

And no matter how bad some commentary may get, the only way to solve a problem is to address it, so go for it.

5. Don’t forget the introverts who don’t like team-building activities

Because introverts rarely make an attempt to voice their concerns during meetings, feedback can help you include these people with the team more efficiently.

Things become somewhat more complicated when it comes to team-building activities. Even if introverts will participate, if required, they won’t be happy about it (unless you’ve miraculously managed to create teams composed of introverts alone).

But even in this case, feedback can help. Nobody is saying that these people are antisocial, just that they choose more peaceful (and definitely quieter) social activities. Take a look at some of their proposed activities and make sure to implement a couple.

6. “Who” and “what”

Lastly, anonymous feedback is all about “what,” not about “who.” The greatest thing about it is that you won’t know whose ideas and complaints top the chart of best answers, but you’ll certainly become aware of the issues.

However, this doesn’t mean that your employees won’t know the “whos.” Close colleagues may (and usually will) discuss their answers, meaning that the top brass is, for once, left in the dark about the identity of the responders. In a sense, this also boosts team building.

Conclusion

Employee feedback can be a great tool for many purposes. When it comes to team building, it can be utilized to compile ideas and suggestions for upcoming events. Indeed, many companies send questionnaires ahead of planned gatherings, which don’t necessarily have to be anonymous. Rather, they may feature a couple of ideas that are sustainable and ask employees to vote for their favorites.

Other ideas also come to mind, but there can by no means be any generalization. People are different, and so are companies. Experiment with feedback to come up with best practice to help you boost team building steadily into the future.