3 Benefits of Anonymous Feedback

Your employees are your company’s eyes and ears.

They see challenges and opportunities firsthand. As a healthcare administrator, you want to gain insights from their observations and make data-driven decisions that improve operations.

Unfortunately, learning from your employees can be challenging. There are numerous, often understandable reasons for this. Employees might fear retribution for negative feedback. Maybe an employee is concerned he or she will gain a reputation as someone who complains too much. Or they might fear the thought of having their ideas shot down.

Anonymous feedback is an excellent strategy to overcome those concerns. It will help you learn from employees, begin to see your company through their eyes, and ultimately, allow you to make informed decisions about the direction of your business.

Here are three ways anonymous employee feedback can benefit your organization.

1. Gain operational intelligence

Employees are a great source of operational intelligence. The challenge for a business owner is to figure out the best way to tap into workers’ observations and ideas.

People love to share their thoughts — so long as they’re doing it in a safe environment. And in many cases, your employees have probably given more thought to what can improve work conditions than you realize. However, they may be having conversations about those topics with their friends or family members because they are able to enjoy a level of safety and comfort.

Providing a similar frictionless platform to gather this knowledge can help ease their concerns. Without fear of retaliation or the pressure of being identified, those insights can be shared more easily. Collecting and acting on this information will help you make better decisions. Employees will see that their input is valuable to you and the company.

2. Identify trends

Regular employee feedback will help you connect dots and identify trends.

Chances are good your staff’s concerns and observations are shared concerns. They might each be seeing the same issue over and over from a different perspective. And they’ve probably even thought of different ways to tackle it.

Without an outlet to share those observations, important trends could go unnoticed.

While it’s true that feedback can skew negative, people rarely complain without a reason. Having an open mind to the challenges employees face, identifying trends and root causes, and looking for ways to improve a situation will make you a better manager and your company a better employer.

3. Open lines of communication

Feedback is great. A conversation is better.

With a platform like WorkHound, anonymous feedback can be a springboard to a productive, one-on-one conversation with an employee.

WorkHound gives employees the option to identify themselves. This feature can lead you to engage in deeper conversations about the business, resolve specific issues, and build a greater trust in the employer-employee relationship.

Some will choose not to put a name to their feedback. That’s OK. Knowing that they have the option to do so creates a positive avenue for them to pursue in the future. Additionally, giving employees the ability to remain anonymous builds trust in the company’s mission and operations.

Feedback is a long game. Every positive interaction builds trust for the next one. Creating a culture where open lines of communication are the norm is a great benefit for both sides of the relationship.

Ready to hear what your workers have to say? Contact our team to talk with an expert.