How to Ensure Your Employees Feel Heard

Entrepreneurs weigh in on the methods they use to get their employees’ insight on business issues and company morale.

We asked members of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) to share their creative ways of making their team feel heard and getting input from everyone.

Utilize Social Media

“My employees are heard through our private Facebook group. I use it to share positive feedback from customers and poll employees for new product ideas. They also have the opportunity to reply or even start new topics of their choice. My employees are frequently using it in their personal lives and are already familiar with the interface. Therefore, it seems to yield more interaction in comparison to an enterprise-only solution we had tried in the past. Plus, it’s completely free!”

Chris Carey, EO Minnesota
Founder and President; Modern Automotive Performance

Involve Other Departments

“We now organize our ‘ShipIt’ days in the Product and Engineering departments on a regular basis. This gives our designers and the tech team the chance to work creatively on anything that relates to our products. Everyone cherishes the opportunity to get creative and do things they normally wouldn’t have time for. The overall result has been really fascinating and because of that, we have posed a similar challenge to the entire team with ‘Ideation Camp,’ an open space to bring ideas, criticism, and feedback.”

Benjamin Gnther and Sebastian Schuon, EO Germany–Munich
CEO, CTO; STYLIGHT

Create a “Growth Team”

“We came up with the ‘Punchkick Growth Team.’ It’s simply a team composed of anyone who wants to join and shape the direction of our growth. We have used a web tool called Trello to manage our growth initiatives (called ‘rocks’). First, we opened the Trello board to all employees, and they submitted their ideas for improvement to the backlog. Each quarter, the PGT identifies timely rocks and assigns them to Punchkickers based on their passion and expertise. The answers to our questions almost always exist within our team.”

Zak Dabbas, EO Chicago
Co-Founder and CEO; Punchkick Interactive Inc.

Track Employee Happiness

“We implemented a tracking system for monitoring the happiness and professional fulfillment of each member of the team. Emails are sent each morning and afternoon, asking our employees to rate their happiness levels (green, yellow or red) and inviting them to comment. We then hold weekly ‘Happiness Meetings’ to discuss the previous week’s colors and agree on action plans for resolving any concerns. This ensures we obtain a clear and accurate vision of the team, and it helps us keep our finger on the pulse.”

David Tomas, EO Spain–Barcelona
Co-Founder; Cyberclick Agent