The recent months have been a whirlwind of unpredictable and disruptive global events - from natural disasters and viral pandemics to economic downturns.
Organisations like yours are left with no choice but to deal with the impact of these circumstances through crisis management processes, which are focussed on reducing disturbances.
However, one important factor that is often overlooked during these times is employee feedback. Listening to their concerns and ideas can help you to support them better during these difficult times, while also gaining useful insights which allow your business to cope and survive.
Here are some benefits of employee feedback and why it plays a crucial role in your company’s crisis management process.
What is crisis management?
Life doesn’t always go completely to plan.
The occurrence of a crisis can damage your operations, threaten your company’s reputation, hurt your finances and affect your employees’ well-being.
A robust crisis management process is a set-out strategy which enables you to deal with disturbances, emergencies and uncertain situations to ensure your business can remain functional and all employees can cope when facing problems.
It involves processes that identify risks, manage responses and deliver the necessary information.
Putting effective employee communication in place is the key to handling any crisis. This is because collecting feedback and insights from your team allows your business to come up with better plans, eliminate misunderstandings and focus on recovery.
What is the purpose of employee feedback on your company’s crisis management processes?
Improving your internal communication systems ensure you’re handling problems without guesswork or assumptions.
Facilitating employee feedback also enhances employee engagement, so everyone in your company can feel like they’re contributing to solving problems.
To help explain why employee feedback plays a vital role in your company’s crisis management, here are some of its main purposes:
- Providing you with the right information and resources
Collecting employee feedback guarantees you a 360º view of the crisis. This is because it helps you consider those things you didn’t notice from your own perspective.
- Bridging the gap between employee expectations and goals
The insights you’ll gain from your workforce will bring you and your employees onto the same page, especially during uncertain times when they have higher expectations of you to assist and guide them.
- Motivating employees to get more involved
Considering the views and opinions of your employees will make them feel that you value them and that they matter in overcoming the company’s crisis. This will encourage them to be more proactive and productive in finding necessary solutions, as well as support the final decisions.
- Building a two-way support system
Through their contributions and suggestions in managing the company’s current situation, your team can actively support your crisis management. When you have a clear understanding of their needs, you can also help employees navigate through drastic adjustments and difficult times.
Crises are inevitable – it’s just a part of business, as it is in life.
However, there are benefits to listening to all of your team members when it comes to crisis management processes.
What are the benefits of employee feedback on your company’s crisis management?
Establishing effective communication through employee feedback doesn’t only give your workers a voice; it also offers a lot of advantages too, including:
1. Employee feedback prevents you from incurring extra costs.
Obtaining honest insights from employees allows you to address problems more thoroughly and potentially prevent further issues from happening.
2. Employee feedback enables you to track whether your current approaches are working.
The best way to recover from any crisis is by applying the right processes and minimising all possible damage. Employee feedback gives you a reality check to see if your crisis management processes are working or if you need to change some aspects of it.
3. Employee feedback also gives you knowledge about external stakeholders
Your employees act as representatives of your business in the public. Most often, they communicate closely with your clients and suppliers - so obtaining employee feedback can also help you understand the concerns of your external stakeholders.
4. Employee feedback supports your leadership team.
Gaining employee insights enables your management team to easily connect with internal teams. Employee feedback also provides them with confidence to understand current challenges and opportunities.
5. Employee feedback strengthens your company’s culture.
Whether the crisis is a financial problem, a legal one or a natural disaster, it can negatively affect employees one way or another. Because of this, you need to strengthen your company’s culture to ensure everyone is motivated to help the business thrive again.
By listening to employees, you can support them and show that you care. It also fosters open communication that will allow you to manage disruptions better.
Fortunately, scientific-based HR platforms like VibeCatch exists to make employee listening a priority. With its tools and solutions, your business can gather helpful insights and valuable information from employees when developing business initiatives like crisis management processes.
How can VibeCatch help you?
In this digital age where data is king, there is an opportunity for you to effectively measure employee engagement, performance and well-being.
By collecting valuable insights from your workers through one powerful platform, you’ll be able to learn how you can improve your company and its operations.
To do this effectively, it’s important to use active, scientific-based listening and learning of your internal workforce to yield better (and trackable) results – this is how VibeCatch can help you.
What is VibeCatch?
VibeCatch is a HR platform based on 15 years of proven research, offering you the opportunity to make a difference and prove the impact that you know you make every single day for the people around you.
Through VibeCatch’s QWL Pools, Pulse Polls and 360 Feedback Polls, you can uncover hidden opportunities, correct issues and address areas of improvement for both employees and management.
This time, you in the HR department will be able to work based on reliable information and you can now have a tangible Return on Investment (ROI) to present to management.
Book an obligation-free consultation and we’ll discuss your options to show you how VibeCatch can help you help everyone.
