Regular and thoughtfully planned check-ins are great opportunities to gauge employee satisfaction, provide mutual feedback, and identify any sources of distress or toxic work dynamics. Regardless, the conversations about employee feedback or questions are scripted or generic, which doesn’t help probe for potential issues ranging from workload, negative work tensions, and lack of clarity on the role. Even if the relationship between the manager and the employees is overall productive and congenial, the employee may hold back sharing toxic dynamics that have no hard evidence (yet), have difficulty phrasing their needs that may come across like feedback to their managers, or avoid sharing thoughts at the fear of coming across a complainer.
Being able to identify sometimes amorphous issues early is critical. A toxic work environment is consistently one of the top reasons people leave. Still, employees often do not know how to escalate the issue without a direct HR violation to point to, and as a manager, you may be shielded from such an environment. Similarly, unless the managers have a clear hypothesis on what may be on the employee’s mind, direct questions meant to be exploratory and open-ended can be awkward and misleading, or worse, scare the employees into guessing whether there’s a different agenda.
I have had meaningful and candid conversations with employees when I ask these three questions. The key is to ask deliberately and regularly, such as 90-day check-in after onboarding (or after promotion), end-of-year reviews, and informal check-ins. At the next check-in, try out these questions to probe what may be top of mind for your employees.
1. Do you believe your work has a valuable impact on the organization?
A major demotivating factor for many employees is not understanding how their work contributes to the company’s success, i.e., why they are doing it. This lack of clarity can be a result of several factors, such as:
- Disconnect between company’s or department’s goal and own work (“I don’t know what impact my work has because I am not sure how it’s relevant to the company’s goals”)
- Work that goes unrecognized by decision-makers (“I did all that analysis, and I have no idea how that was used or if it mattered at all to the outcome”)
- Lack of trust that management will follow through on their commitments (“I do the work, but the management doesn’t have enough conviction to support the decisions I make”)
2. Do you feel valued at the organization?
This question can unearth a broad range of issues that can lead to an employee not feeling valued. The most direct interpretation is dissatisfaction with compensation or promotion (“monetary value”). More interestingly, answers often point to other sources of how one derives a sense of value, or lack thereof, such as:
- Being excluded in decision-making meetings (“it doesn’t seem like my opinions are valued by the stakeholders”)
- Excessive micro-management or override of decisions (“I feel like I am not trusted to operate with autonomy”)
- Toxic or harmful dynamics with colleagues (“I don’t feel valued when a colleague belittles me or betrays my confidence
3. Do you believe that you will have impact and value?
This question helps identify roadblocks that employees can foresee on their way to success. Topics that can come up range:
- Doubts about the organization’s support for the role or person (“I have ideas about this, but I am not sure the company would be open to that type of proposal”)
- Feeling underutilized or misaligned with one’s skillset (“I think I can add more value if I were working on XYZ”)
- Feeling burned out (“I know I can do the work, but I am not sure this is going to be sustainable in the future”)
Suppose the answer to these three questions is a resounding yes. In that case, you have an employee who knows how their work contributes to the company’s success, feels valued, and believes that they will continue to contribute to the company. As a manager, your goal is to identify any stumbling blocks early to enable your team’s success.
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