Are You Getting Feedback?

Source: AICPA CPA Insider

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Jennifer Wilson.

What is your leadership team doing to intentionally gather feedback from team members? This article identifies six strategies you can use to listen more openly to your team:

1. Teach your leadership team to embrace all feedback. Openness to feedback is a willingness to ensure speakers are heard, viewpoints are acknowledged, and thanks are given for the opinions offered.
2. Teach your team members to speak honestly, constructively, and with solutions in mind. You may have to retrain your team members and encourage them to share their opinions and actively participate in meetings, with the assurance that they will not be “smacked down.”
3. Form an employee advisory board. Consider forming an employee advisory board (EAB) to act as a communications liaison between leadership and your team as a whole. Boards are encouraged to meet monthly and to prioritize suggestions and input from the staff and share that input with leadership.
4. Conduct an annual or biennial employee engagement survey. Engage a third party to develop and launch a regular employee engagement survey in which your team members can comment confidentially without the fear of making a career-limiting move by fully sharing their hearts.
5. Invite team members to participate in elements of strategic planning and visioning. Engage younger and less experienced team members in aspects of strategic planning and visioning to ensure that their voices are heard.
6. Run a team challenge and make the feedback process fun! Have teams form to identify and develop a single idea to present to the firm, or to a contest judging committee. Ask for ideas that would have the greatest impact on employee engagement and satisfaction.

For the complete article, read “Great leaders gather feedback.”

From AICPA CPA Insider, April 23, 2012, www.CPA2biz.com.