Build a Great Feedback Culture

Why feedback culture matters

Good feedback practices are essential to an organization's growth. According to Gallup*, employees who receive regular feedback are 3.5 times more likely to be engaged at work. 

But the path to building a successful feedback culture isn't always straightforward.You may have read about countless theories and practices for effective feedback. But figuring out which approach fits your unique workplace culture can be a daunting task. 

Sometimes, implementing feedback practices that your team isn't ready for can be counterproductive, damaging morale and trust. In addition, educating team members about the importance of feedback and training them to give it correctly takes a lot of time and effort. 

It's not easy to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable giving and receiving feedback.

Create your feedback practices together

Nyord is a collaborative software solution that answers the question "How can we work better together?” Involve everyone in finding out what kind of feedback culture is right for your team or your organization. 

Step 1: Understand what your team needs

How does your team feel about your current feedback culture? Nyord simplifies the process of gathering observations, insights and experiences from everyone involved. Your team members can post anonymously to ensure honest and open viewpoints.

To manage the input efficiently, you can structure conversations with specific categories. Think about past feedback practices that have proven valuable, as well as hopes and concerns that come with your feedback mechanisms.

For example, a post might read:

• "Regular one-on-one meetings have helped build trust in the team."
• "I'm concerned that unsolicited feedback could lead to conflict”.

Your colleagues anonymously rate each other's observations and experiences  This way, all input is ranked by relevance to the group in real time, allowing everyone to quickly identify the most important insights.

Benefits of Nyord:

• Foster inclusion: Anonymous and asynchronous contributions level the playing field for everyone, from introverts to extroverts, remote workers to in-person employees, and interns to senior team members.
• Eliminate groupthink: Recorded inputs remain hidden from a participant until he or she adds his or her own insights, preventing the first contributors from accidently setting the tone for the entire conversation. 
• Rapid results: Participants rate each other's contributions, so you can quickly identify the insights the group finds most relevant.

Step 2: Engage your people in creating their own feedback solutions

Using the insights gathered in step one, your team will quickly identify the most pressing challenges. From there, your people can easily generate ideas to improve your feedback system. Ideas can range from simple tweaks to comprehensive plans.

For example, participants might suggest:

• "Try a ‘feed forward’ approach", or
• "Implement this special review tool to easily send kudos to peers”.

Team members can comment on and discuss each other's ideas, which encourages collaboration and creativity. As in the previous step, ideas are anonymously scored and ranked, with the most promising solutions rising to the top of the list.

Benefits of Nyord:

• Real engagement: To stimulate engagement, each team member must make at least one suggestion before accessing others' contributions.
• Faster decision-making: Eliminate lengthy debates and poor compromises by advancing only the highest-rated ideas to the experimentation stage.
• Get buy-in: Familiarizing participants with potential solutions and listening to their pros and cons at this stage supports individual acceptance and paves the way for the subsequent implementation process.

Step 3: Run feedback culture experiments and learn

Armed with the top-rated ideas, you can set up experiments with defined time frames. Then ask your team members to rate the success of each experiment. This approach provides authentic knowledge about which practices worked and which didn't, and more importantly, why they succeeded or failed. With this fact-based approach, your organization can continuously learn and improve its feedback culture.

For example, participants may top rate: “Introduce a mandatory 2-hour training for all stakeholders to effectively give and receive feedback effectively, fostering a culture of openness and respect.”

Benefits of Nyord:

• Communicate on the go: Hosting experiments on an online platform accessible to all team members allows for real-time sharing and discussion of lessons learned as the experiments unfold.
• Measure progress: At the end of the trial period, each participant is automatically prompted to assess the experiment's effectiveness.
• Automate documentation: The details of each experiment are captured and shared across different teams, enabling cross-team learning and inspiring others to replicate successful strategies within their own groups.

Better ways of working - with Nyord

Nyord offers a simple yet powerful structure that enables your team to collaboratively and continuously improve their work and organization without the need for an expert facilitator. 

What's more, we believe that consistently addressing challenges through a collaborative and participatory approach not only increases employee satisfaction, but also improves teamwork and fosters a stronger sense of community within the team.

Ready to co-create your feedback culture?

Sign up and try Nyord today.