4 Tips for Using Feedback to Improve Teamwork

In a warehouse setting, all members of the team must work collaboratively to get things done. If one piece of the puzzle is missing, productivity is diminished. 

How can you ensure your employees work together well? It starts with asking for and acting on their feedback related to issues like other workers, equipment, training, and processes. 

How to Make Feedback Work for Your Company

While occasionally asking for feedback during one-on-one meetings with your employees and through biannual surveys can be helpful, implementing an ongoing employee feedback program will have a foundational impact. 

When you’re regularly gaining insight into the thoughts and concerns of your employees, you can make better-informed decisions about how to keep them happy, safe, and working collaboratively.

But whether you’ve only recently begun a feedback program or have had one for years, you may wonder how to make the most out of the feedback you’re receiving. Here’s our best advice for using feedback to boost teamwork:

1. Build Feedback Into Your Onboarding Procedures

To get an accurate picture of how your team works together, it can be helpful to have an “outsider’s perspective.” To capture that view, you’ll need feedback from those who aren’t yet inside members of your team — your newest employees.

During orientation and training, talk through how WorkHound works, including how exactly to use the tool to provide feedback. You’ll also want to talk about why it’s important for workers to provide feedback and how it benefits overall operations and the employee experience.

To promote trust in the program, share testimonials about its benefits from your current employees, ideally offering an in-person, firsthand view of how it works. By encouraging employees to share their feedback from day one, you may gain insights you otherwise wouldn’t about ways processes and teamwork can be improved.

2. Look for Critiques, But Also Praise

There’s a common misconception that all feedback is negative. But that’s simply not true! While companies certainly get feedback about ways they can improve, they also receive a good number of comments related to areas of the company that work efficiently. 

When you’re looking at the feedback you receive from workers, dive into it holistically. Certainly, you’ll want to pay attention to complaints in order to offer meaningful solutions. But when it comes to promoting effective operations and teamwork, you can often gain keen insight from what your employees are praising.

Seeing what’s going well can help you make adjustments in other processes, and you’ll also have a good understanding of who’s leading the way.

3. Look for Potential Problems With Training

Many issues that seem directly related to how employees work together can actually boil down to a problem with training. When you receive feedback related to other employees or with processes, take a closer look at your training efforts around the work they’re doing.

Review onboarding and training materials — as well as presentations or notes — about the specific processes they’re involved in. Are there gaps in what’s covered? Is it unclear who is responsible for what? Do some parts of the process interfere with other steps?

All of these issues can cause teamwork to break down, and they can often be fixed with changes to processes and procedures, using feedback as a guide to implement fixes.

4. Listen to the Quiet Voices

All too often, the only voice you hear when it comes to employee feedback is the loudest one. And while you can certainly gather good insight into worker needs and wants through vocal employees, you’ll miss out if you don’t listen carefully for other voices.

How does this translate to a platform using written communication as a mechanism for feedback? Easily! Your loud voices are the ones you hear from more frequently. They may speak up often to share frustrations or ask questions.

The quiet voices — those that often get drowned out — are from employees who only rarely share their thoughts. While they’re less vocal, they typically have something impactful to say. And they can shed light on problems with other employees, with the equipment they’re using, and with processes. 

Real-time feedback from your employees can help you make real-time changes with a positive impact. Sign up for a free demo to learn how WorkHound can help.