Employee expectations have shifted dramatically in the past few years. The great resignation began during the pandemic and continued well into 2022, dumbfounding employers across the globe. An economic downturn could spell another change regarding employee values and expectations.
Employers are looking for accurate and effective ways to track employee engagement, and anticipate any issues that could impact productivity and turnover.
In this guide, we will explore the latest available tools and technologies that are helping HR teams to keep their employees engaged. We will also look at how often you should be collecting data, and we will take a look at the top 10 employee feedback tools on the market today.
What is Employee Feedback Software?
Employee feedback software is a tool used by HR professionals to a) collect and b) analyse employee data such as surveys, reviews and internal communications.
What metrics can you track?
HR teams use employee feedback software to track metrics such as employee sentiment, engagement and performance. Some software also identifies key drivers and pain points that impact workforce productivity.
What is it used for?
HR teams and managers can use this information to:
Create development and incentivisation plans
Employee feedback software can help to identify employees’ personal growth and development aims. HR teams can then align these goals with business needs and create mutually beneficial development plans that help employees reach their full potential.
Identify training needs
If employees report that they don’t feel confident or supported in their role, this could be an indication that additional training is required.
Identify toxic workplace behaviour
If one department has a high number of negative feedback, this could be indicative of toxic workplace culture. With a little further investigating you can diffuse office conflicts before they escalate.
Improve communication between managers and employers
Employee feedback software can help to improve the communication between managers and employees by identifying any areas where employees feel they are not being listened to or valued.
Boost morale
When you make it one of your key objectives to track employee sentiment and emotions, you are on the path to creating a happy and healthy workplace.
Collecting Data
Employee Surveys
Open vs Closed questions
When it comes to employee surveys, there are two main types of questions that you can ask: open-ended or closed-ended.
Open-ended questions are those where the respondent is free to answer in their own words. These questions tend to elicit more detailed and qualitative responses.
Closed-ended questions are those where the respondent is required to choose from a set of predetermined answers.
So, which type of question should you use? Open-ended questions allow employees to freely communicate their thoughts and feelings without any bias. This makes them ideal for exploring employee sentiment around a particular issue.
The main benefit of closed-ended questions is that they’re quick and easy to complete and analyse. However, they provide very little detail, and you may need to conduct subsequent surveys to get the insights you’re seeking.
Nowadays, natural language processing (NLP) technology is accurate and easily accessible, making it a breeze to analyse open-ended survey responses and organise them into readable data.
Frequency
Generally, HR teams collect data on a quarterly or annual basis. However, if you are tracking a metric such as employee sentiment, and you want to be able to react promptly to issues as they occur, then shorter, more frequent pulse surveys (approximately every two weeks) are the way to go.
However, employees can get survey fatigue, so it is important to strike a balance. Too many surveys will result in employees ignoring them altogether, or it may mean that the quality of the feedback quickly deteriorates.
For this reason, it is important to consider what you want to achieve with your surveys before deciding on the frequency and making them relevant and engaging for employees.
Employee reviews
Reviews on sites such as GlassDoor are also a great source of data for employee feedback. Unlike surveys, reviews are organically written, without being subject to bias and are more likely to honestly reflect employee opinion.
Like open-ended responses, reviews can be difficult to analyse, but NLP technology can help by extracting the most important insights and organising them into an easily digestible format.
Employee performance data
Employee performance can be another indicator of employee satisfaction. For example, if you see a decrease in the quality or quantity of work, it could be a sign that employees are feeling disengaged.
Employee performance data can be captured in several ways, such as through productivity tracking software, time-tracking tools or even customer feedback.
However, it is important to consider that there could be other factors, unrelated to employee satisfaction, that could impact performance. For example, if you roll out a new company-wide software that employees are not familiar with, this will undoubtedly affect productivity. If you identify a decrease in productivity or quality of performance, it’s important to carry out further investigation to establish the root cause.
7 Employee Feedback Tools
With Symanto, you can analyse any unstructured text data, be it from open-ended survey responses or online reviews. Symanto reads between the lines to give you clear, actionable insights into employee sentiment, emotions, pain points and drivers.
Symanto also provides unique insights into employee psychographic traits. You can use this information to boost employee engagement by communicating with them in their preferred style.
Leapsome focuses on nurturing a culture of accountability and transparency. Its goal is to empower managers and employees to align their goals and create a continuous feedback loop to keep communication flowing.
Motivosity enables you to set up incentivisation programmes to publicly recognise and reward employees for their achievements. With this employee feedback software, you can create a feeling of community in your workforce with peer-to-peer recognition and even offer real-life rewards to show your appreciation.
Reflektive is a simple tool enabling managers and employees to set goals and track progress and communicate feedback with regular check-ins.
The premise of 15Five is that employees spend 15 minutes providing feedback, and the employer responds in five minutes. This is a great tool for busy managers to ensure their employees feel heard, but HR teams may prefer a tool that allows for more in-depth feedback sessions.
TINYpulse helps set up and distribute quick pulse surveys to keep on top of employee sentiment and engagement. TINYpulse aims to keep you up to speed and intervene quickly. However, for open-ended questions, you may want to combine this Employee Feedback Software with another tool such as Symanto to quickly gain actionable insights.
With Kudos, colleagues can give each other feedback in the form of public recognition for a job well done. This employee feedback software is great for boosting morale and team spirit and enabling HR teams to acknowledge input from colleagues.
Summary
Employee feedback software is a great way to stay on top of employee satisfaction. By tracking performance, productivity and engagement, you can identify issues early and take steps to improve the employee experience.
There are lots of different tools available, so it’s important to choose one that best suits your needs. We hope you found this guide helpful.
Get Started With Symanto
Want to learn more about getting in-depth, actionable insights from employee reviews, surveys and communications with Symanto? A member of our team is always on hand to walk you through the possibilities of the newest NLP technologies for your business. Get in touch today to find out more.
