Regular Feedback From My Team
Tags: feedback, people, management
Published: 2022-05-08 01:13:14

As a brand new-ish leader of people at Hyland, I am regularly in search of ways to solicit feedback from my team.

Hyland has a quarterly review process that is completely optional, so it can be tough to get the organizational support that implementing such a process would entail. Additionally, this quarterly review process is not anonymous, so it can be tough for people to provide "true" feedback.

Yearly, Hyland has a Leadership Evaluation Process which does provide that level of anonymity that I require, plus the organizational support around it. Unfortunately, this only reviews the **people** in leadership, and not necessarily the health of the **team**. Back to the drawing board.

## My wife solves the problem

My wife mentioned to me offhand that she her organization's weekly "Voice of the Team" survey is moving to a biweekly cadence. This sparked my interest, mainly because I had no idea what she was talking about.

She explained it as such:

- The survey is completely anonymous.
- The first question is a 1-10 rating: "How satisfied are you with the team?"
- The second question is a Yes/No, and it's a different question every week. This is typically statements about the leadership or the team in general.
- The third question is an open response: "Do you have any other feedback?"

That's it. Three simple questions, sent weekly, to gauge the health of the team and to provide the team a manner in which to provide feedback.

## My solution

Using Hyland's Microsoft 365 subscription, I created a simple [Microsoft Form](https://forms.office.com/) for the given week, as seen in the screenshot below.

![Regular Feedback From My Team](https://blog.morriscloud.com/content/images/2021/08/image-16.png)
_Note that we are not recording names! Totally anonymous._

Then I copied that form multiple times, one for each subsequent week. I gave each of those forms a different second question:

- AWS Hosting Team Leadership cares about me as an individual.
- AWS Hosting Team Leadership holds the team accountable for its actions.

For now, those are the only three leadership-focused questions I've come up with. Future questions will likely include state-of-the-team type questions, in addition to some product roadmap ones.

Every Friday morning at 10am Eastern, I send out the following email:

> Team,
> 
> In an effort to become more a more transparent and feedback-driven organization, I will be sending out a very short survey every week on Friday.
> 
> This survey is completely anonymous. While it requires you to be logged into your Hyland Office 365 account, names and emails are not recorded.
> 
> I strongly encourage you to respond honestly! The responses to these surveys will drive a portion of every department meeting.
> 
> https://forms.office.com/r/---
> 
> Thanks,
> Tony

## How it's going

My team spans three very distinct geographic regions: US, Poland, and India. Because I send this out Friday morning Eastern time, most of the non-US team members are not likely to respond on the same day.

I am not planning on closing the form until the next one comes out, so it gives the team a chance to provide feedback when they see fit.

I would love to get insight into other survey-style questions that anyone else might think fit in this type of feedback gathering! Let's hear it!