Turn Employee Feedback into Action by Ethan Burris

Authors: Ethan Burris, Benjamin Thomas, Ketaki Sodhi, and Dawn Klinghoffer

ENHANCING HOW A COMPANY supports and engages its employees can attract talent, improve retention, spur innovation, and increase customer satisfaction. But managing the employee experience for maximum benefit requires leaders to know what employees are seeing, feeling, and wanting—and then respond judiciously. Driven by a tight labor market, corporate leaders have recently invested enormous amounts of energy and resources in collecting employee feedback through pulse surveys, town halls, listening tours, focus groups, data scraping from message boards, and other methods. The problem for many leaders is that when they ask what employees think, they don’t know what to do with what they hear—they often struggle to translate all this input into meaningful insights and concrete actions. A gap between accumulating the information and taking coherent action to respond can diminish the value of employee feedback over time—and if it persists, employees may stop responding.

Our research, involving detailed interviews with executives and HR leaders from more than two dozen medium-to-large multinational companies, aimed to uncover how organizations move from soliciting feedback to taking action to manage the employee experience. Our conversations revealed that those companies—which together employ more than 2 million people across sectors including technology, financial services, and consumer goods—face seven common challenges. They also identified some innovative strategies for overcoming them. Here we outline the seven challenges and show how leading places to work have built an integrated process for assembling and understanding employee input and translating it into action.

1. Making Sense of All That Data

Across conversations with leaders, we heard about a sophisticated assortment of methods for gathering feedback from employees. Technology has made collecting this information relatively simple. Companies now acquire (semi-) annual, weekly, daily, and even hourly data from a variety of sources. Usually HR oversees centralized collection efforts while individual business units and leaders launch localized data grabs. Companies often complement these processes with a bevy of more-qualitative methods, such as town halls, focus groups, task forces, and interviews.

Paradoxically, the ease of acquiring data threatens its practical value. Leaders repeatedly told us they felt overwhelmed by its sheer volume. Information coming from multiple places, in multiple formats, across units, locations, moments in time, and groups, necessitates a strategy for gleaning insights to inform decisions.

Quantitative information (such as from surveys) is perhaps the easiest to parse, combine, and analyze for substance, but scattered sources and varying cadences can make it difficult to tie the threads into a coherent whole. What’s more, islands of data are often held by different owners, gathered from diverse employee groups, and hard to link to more-sensitive, centrally held sources, such as employee performance data. The result can be an underwhelming—or missing—strategy for integrated analysis.

Similarly, a number of organizations invest heavily in town halls, interviews, and focus groups to gather open-ended comments and suggestions from tens of thousands of employees. Yet they are frequently unable to consolidate these rich accounts of the employee experience or connect them with other data, including quantitative input. These qualitative efforts have sometimes led to situations in which a few vivid anecdotes proved so memorable that leaders attached themselves to the experiences of a handful of people who were unrepresentative of the workforce as a whole.

Leaders told us about several strategies for addressing this challenge. Some companies have made more sense of their data by limiting who is authorized to launch new surveys or by constraining the variety of data-collection methods. Centralized units have led to better coordination, better integration, and more-robust comprehensive analyses that span the entire organization. For instance, one enterprise software company has divided the people responsible for managing employee voice into those who implement “active” systems, such as centralized surveys and focus groups, and those who manage “passive” systems, such as monitoring internal message boards and external websites like Glassdoor. Although this approach streamlines data intake and storage—and helps ensure employee privacy through better data hygiene—it often limits the ability of business units or lower-level leaders to gauge employee sentiment on issues not covered by fewer, narrower surveys.

Other organizations have embraced a more localized process, trying to temper employee expectations for what each survey can yield. For instance, one company labeled centrally conducted surveys very specifically to make their purpose clear: the “manager feedback survey,” the “first-90-day survey,” and the “work-from-home survey,” for example. These were complemented by surveys launched by lower-level managers and adapted for their unique concerns. Although this strategy has helped set expectations for how employee data will be used, the guardrails prevent companies from linking responses to their wider ecosystem for sophisticated analysis. When data collection efforts are not coordinated, the chances increase that leaders will miss hearing from certain employee populations and will create policies that reflect only some of the wider sentiment.

How can companies acquire centralized insights without accumulating too much data? One solution, used by Microsoft, is to invest in specialized listening teams. These teams include analysts, data scientists, and industrial and organizational psychologists who have expertise in accurately measuring what matters to employees’ thriving, optimizing participation rates, and organizing and analyzing responses. The teams are evaluated on their ability to gather relevant and valid data that key managers and leaders find useful. In addition to heading up the overall strategy for gathering employee input, they partner with HR groups and work with localized business units to coordinate employee-listening efforts and avoid the overlapping of data collections. For instance, Microsoft relies on an employee-listening community whose members come from different geographies, business units, and focus areas. These people act as champions for the central team to ensure an open flow of information and insights between it and the local HR teams while reducing the duplication of efforts among local-level units.

2. Making Sure Employees Feel Heard

People won’t speak up if they don’t believe their input will be genuinely considered. Many HR executives we interviewed said that “survey fatigue” is a misnomer. Rather, employees experience “inaction fatigue,” and harnessing their voices requires a long-term investment in building and sustaining trust that their feedback will make a difference. In one study business units whose managers were responsive to employee feedback experienced about 30% less attrition. Another study indicates a 24% increase in speaking up when employees believe that managers take action on their input. The most successful companies routinely have survey response rates that hover in the 80%–90% range.

Leading companies demonstrate that they value employee input by engaging in what clinical psychologists call reflective listening. This approach involves actively demonstrating an understanding of what’s been heard—by, for example, summarizing and openly sharing themes from surveys and meetings. Two issues surfaced as particularly challenging to address.

Active listening is difficult when few employees provide feedback

Many managers mentioned their struggle to confidently proclaim a broad understanding of what employees really feel when only a small percentage of them bother to respond. One executive adviser in the employee-listening space argues that this is misguided: Instead of focusing on why 90% of employees did not respond to a survey, she suggests, focus on the 10% who did. Implementing changes based on input from the responsive minority can demonstrate action and potentially motivate the silent majority to participate in future surveys.

Practices for sharing results vary widely

Although the companies we studied all felt that talking about the results of a survey soon after it closed was critical, senior leaders sent varying signals of importance in communicating them. For instance, one organization posted the results on an internal message board along with a recorded message from the CEO about highlights from the survey. Others simply cascaded some upper-level messaging through middle managers. Some organizations, however, devoted much more visible effort: The CEO of a global health and life sciences company first went on a 10-country tour to visit the largest offices and talk directly about the results of an employee-experience survey at informal town halls with live Q&A. Then he led a virtual town hall that was available companywide. His message had three parts: He explicitly communicated that feedback was valued and that employees could expect to see leadership act in a matter of months. He summarized quantitative results in the areas where he felt action could be taken. And he shared specific qualitative comments to give richness to the quantitative percentages. Finally, the HR team developed a pulse survey to be deployed over the coming months to assess progress and set up additional town halls with the CEO to clarify the actions taken. These consistent and comprehensive communications reinforced a feeling that leadership at the highest levels was truly listening.

3. Identifying the Actual Underlying Problems

Although employee surveys often make clear that something needs to change, companies may struggle to identify what lies beneath the feedback. A wide-scale employee survey in a large telecommunications company, for example, revealed lower satisfaction levels among those in a certain job role. Leaders wanted deeper insights about the source of this issue, but the senior partner in charge of the listening project told us, “We didn’t want employees to think their reward for filling out an annual survey was having to complete another survey.” So the company assembled focus groups and invited all employees who held that job, not just the subset who had raised concerns. The message was: “We heard from employees with your job title that there were challenges, so we wanted to hear from everyone.” In addition to uncovering the deeper insights leaders sought, this method served to gather wider lessons, protect trust in the confidentiality of the process, and reassure employees that speaking up wouldn’t result only in further surveying or listening, especially for those employees voicing pain points.

Often managers discover that an underlying problem is different from the one raised by employees. For instance, a medium-sized technology firm learned that employees were concerned about career advancement. When the company took additional steps to understand this complex problem, it learned that the root issue was a company culture that did not support internal mobility. Under pressure to meet quarterly goals, managers failed to prioritize employee development or support initiatives, such as stretch assignments, that would facilitate career progression. They also felt hamstrung by delays in filling the roles of employees who had been promoted. Thus what initially surfaced as an issue involving employees’ career paths led, upon further analysis, to a more intense focus on managers and their need for support and resources that would help them promote advancement for their subordinates. This finding took months to uncover, and it would have remained hidden without follow-up on the original feedback.

4. Protecting Employee Privacy

Leaders face a dilemma with employee-listening programs: They want to ensure confidentiality, but they would benefit if they could follow up with specific employees to learn more about their responses. They consistently need to find out more—to do a more granular analysis of results across various locations, job types, demographics, and so on—without breaking the trust that employee privacy provides.

Organizations differ in how they handle potentially identifiable employee information. Some keep analysis at a high level. Others maintain anonymity but get specific by sharing direct quotes or detailed demographic data. Managers can take several steps to protect employee trust. One is to set expectations for how feedback will be used. An HR executive at a financial services organization told us that in general employees do not understand the difference between “anonymous” and “confidential.” The company made a great effort to educate its employees and give them an option to respond to surveys either anonymously (no one would be able to identify who provided the information) or confidentially (although aggregated responses would be widely available, only a small handful of the listening group, typically four or five people, would be able to link responses to specific employees). The organization averages a response rate of 90% or higher on its surveys, with 80% or more of employees choosing the confidential route.

Multiple company leaders described the need for consistent, simple communication to build trust and avoid the perception that follow-up data-collection efforts are an inquisition or an excuse to identify malcontents. Companies can also use technology to minimize that need. One health sciences company executive described an innovative way of doing so. As work demands shifted post-Covid, the HR team sent out a pulse survey to roughly 5% of employees over a six-week period. Because the company is large, that small percentage produced several thousand responses to the question “What are aspects of your job that get in the way of your being fully invested and productive in your work?” The team used generative AI to summarize themes across various employee segments, locations, and demographics. The summaries pointed senior executives toward the biggest opportunities to remove the unnecessary complexities in the organization that limited employees’ path to their best work. The team also provided customized feedback to leaders who owned business processes such as supply chains and financial reporting.

5. Navigating Conflicting Views

Gathering feedback from numerous voices rarely results in unanimous agreement. Leaders often find broad differences regarding the best policy to construct or even the most vital issues to resolve. One business unit may report an urgent need to change a business process that another unit holds sacred. One group of employees may experience a difficulty unknown to others. Certain departments (sales, for example) encounter issues that are totally unlike those of another function (such as software engineering). Even more challenging, employees’ views may conflict with leaders’ existing priorities. Artificial intelligence can help comb through viewpoints to find some common ground. But all too often a significant portion of employees will be unsatisfied with any course of action leadership chooses.

Without a clear consensus, a leader’s priority must be to communicate the decision-making process itself. In a classic study employees whose leaders did not explain the reasoning behind a decision to lay off workers at a manufacturing plant saw trust among employees fall 30% more than did leaders who clearly revealed the reasons for the layoffs and a list of those who were to be let go. Such transparency is particularly important for managers, who are often charged with implementing controversial decisions that they themselves do not understand.

In our research leaders commonly employed three elements in these tricky communications: acknowledging the lack of consensus, explaining the decision-making criteria, and demonstrating how various viewpoints influenced the final decision. For instance, leaders at one consumer products company explained their hybrid work policy—requiring office presence for two days a week—as a response to employee feedback valuing in-person interaction despite disliking commutes. The leaders were open about dissatisfaction with the new policy—particularly among certain demographic groups—which helped foster a culture of trust and ensured that all employees felt their perspectives had been considered. A good tactic is to summarize results in this way: “We heard some of you say X, and others say Y” and then follow with a clear action that signals willingness to do something, even if it doesn’t please both factions.

6. Not Burying Bad News

Receiving feedback is not always a pleasant experience for leaders, and it may feel easier to simply ignore disagreeable news. Research on employee voice by one of us (Ethan) has demonstrated that leaders struggle with feedback when it is critical and not strategically aligned with the business or entails complex solutions involving many different stakeholders. It can be stinging for leaders to be told to address things that they have no power over, or to take actions they feel are not the best use of company resources. Managers, aware of employee frustrations (and sometimes sharing them), feel constricted in dealing with these issues. Thus they focus on areas they can influence, often ignoring criticism about things that are beyond their control or outside their strategic priorities—which leads employees to distrust the process.

HR executives have a role to play in ensuring that bad news doesn’t get buried. They should educate leaders on the value of employee surveys and facilitate the translation of feedback into terms that align with strategic goals. For example, if business leaders are primarily focused on financial results, HR should demonstrate that retaining top talent has a positive impact on operational efficiency and financial performance. It’s also essential for HR to have an advocate on the senior leadership team who can help ensure that feedback is integrated and addressed effectively.

In one example, an HR senior executive worked with the company’s employee-listening team to extract relevant insights that were free of a charged emotional tone and phrase them in the strategic language that executives were accustomed to hearing. Gen AI helped with the reframing of complaints as constructive criticism. For instance, one set of questions involved employees’ hopes for the company culture.

Gen AI transformed the language from focusing on flaws to describing aspirations.

7. Providing Meaningful Follow-up

Discovering opportunities in employee feedback does not automatically unlock additional resources to make the necessary changes. At most companies, employees, middle managers, and leaders are already working at capacity. Finding the bandwidth to coordinate implementation across several teams is a tall order. Leaders must also free up resources for middle managers and employees to take on new tasks and initiatives. Perhaps more demanding, leaders may need to shift other initiatives down on the priority list—or even let some go—to address issues that employees have identified as more pressing.

Equally important is communicating what has been done to the entire company. Even if leaders instruct middle managers to take actions—and provide the resources to do so—they often neglect to follow up on how the actions are working and communicate those updates across the organization.

It can be hard to get managers to switch tasks and shift their focus. Legacy initiatives have a momentum of their own; unless a leader explicitly says “Stop” and then ensures that the instruction is adopted, the train just keeps rolling.

Many survey platforms now include action-planning modules for managers to record initiatives they have launched in response to the survey results. One company reported a simple 1-2-3 rule of thumb for action planning: Select one topic, do two things about it, check in at least three times on progress. Yet few of these modules are actively monitored by leadership, so managers often don’t use them. In addition to dashboards of survey results, more-progressive companies post dashboards for the actions and initiatives created as a result of employees’ speaking up. These report how many ideas were submitted alongside how many have been implemented. Relevant stakeholders are assigned to lead actions, creating accountability to drive their execution. Some companies also hold town halls to update employees on progress.

For example, Microsoft publishes companywide survey results to all employees, and managers are asked to set up a meeting to talk about their teams’ experience after each twice-a-year survey. Employees are told about this expectation and encouraged to make sure that their managers follow through on their promises. Also, because the employee experience involves more than just a manager, Microsoft highlights that taking action on important areas is a team’s shared responsibility.

Finally, a number of executives told us that “closing the loop” does not mean everything has been resolved. Many issues continue to evolve. Thus the goal is never to complete the final chapter on one issue and move on to the next. At one professional services firm the leader of the southwest region told us, “80% is framing the problem...it’s a process. Here’s what we heard, here’s where we are, here’s where we’re going based on the feedback we received from you, and here’s when we’ll next perform a pulse [survey] with more results and an opportunity for more input.”

Although companies invest substantial resources in employee-listening programs, these efforts too often fail to lead to a meaningful response. Transforming employee feedback into real change requires a holistic approach to addressing the multifaceted challenges organizations face.

Companies must prioritize centralized insights, build employee trust through active listening and transparency, and delve deeper into the root causes of concerns.

Protecting employee privacy, navigating conflicting viewpoints, and addressing even unpleasant feedback are crucial for fostering a culture of open communication. Ultimately, success lies in empowering leaders to translate insights into concrete actions, effectively communicating progress, and fostering a continual feedback loop that values and respects the diverse voices within the organization. By embracing these strategies, companies can harness the full potential of employees’ voices to drive positive change, enhance engagement, and achieve sustainable success.