If you start planning for next year without doing this first, you are wasting your time!

Gemma Jamieson - wattsnext 

And just like that it is December! Christmas is just around the corner which means the time for reflection and future planning is upon us.

As the year speeds away, we encourage you all to reflect on the year past. Think about the challenges you have overcome and the great achievements you have had along the way. But, as a business owner, is it really possible to do this without first getting feedback from your team? (Hint: The answer is no!!).

Before you start strategizing and planning for the year ahead, head straight the source (your team) to find out what has been working well, and what areas you should be focusing on for improvement. An employee engagement and feedback survey can be a great opportunity to ask your employees to reflect on their experiences across the year, and share their knowledge with you.

In order to get the most value out of conducting a survey, we recommend you take some time to think about what questions you want to ask. Each question should be purposeful and should allow you to evaluate key areas of your business. Think about what you have been focusing on recently or would like to focus on in the future. Ask questions that give you a general pulse check of culture. For example, if you have been working on providing development opportunities to your team, you might ask about how satisfied they are with the training and development they have received, or what development activities have they undertaken recently.

Tip: You may be able to encourage your team to provide more open and honest feedback if you make the survey anonymous! 

One of the most critical parts of conducting an employee engagement and feedback survey is to ensure you feed the results back through to the team! Sharing a summary of your survey results can be a great activity to include as part of your year-end functions or team days. This demonstrates that not only have you asked for feedback, but you have actually listened. Show your staff that you plan to do something with this information.

What’s in it for business owners and managers?

Not only do staff engagement surveys give your staff a voice, the results can be used to predict staff turnover, understand staff morale and job satisfaction, assess perceptions of management capability, review the effectiveness of projects and inform your people strategy for the year ahead!

Remember, it’s all about employee engagement and feedback. Listen to your people.

For more on employee engagement and feedback surveys watch the video here from wattsnext founder Sel-Watts.

If you would like wattsnext to help facilitate your anonymous engagement and feedback survey and present the results to your team, get in touch today - contact:  www.wattsnext.com.au