Desk-free workers – employees who don’t have a traditional workstation and spend a significant amount of their time outside of a conventional office environment – are vitally important to our economy and society. From retail to manufacturing, healthcare to logistics, this army of frontline workers are essential to the smooth running of businesses and organisations. Yet 37 percent of desk-free workers feel less valued than their desk-based colleagues.
One of the challenges of empowering and supporting a desk-free workforce is that they are likely to spend the majority of working hours away from direct management, dealing with customers and clients. In this environment, it can be difficult for managers to get a full view of employee performance and support progression accordingly. This is where gathering external feedback comes in…
What is external feedback?
External feedback refers to performance input that originates outside the organisation. It encompasses insights from customers, partners, and other stakeholders; those who experience the outcomes of desk-free workers’ efforts firsthand. Sources of external feedback could be the customers in a shop, whom the desk-free employee serves, the retail staff receiving deliveries from the desk-free driver, or patients who have been treated by the desk-free hospital staff.
Why is it important for desk-free workers?
True view of performance
While internal feedback typically focuses on performance metrics and peer evaluations, external feedback provides a holistic view of the worker’s impact and effectiveness. It serves as an invaluable tool for professional development, offering perspectives that might not be apparent from within the organisation. By tapping into these external viewpoints, workers and their managers gain a more comprehensive understanding of strengths and areas for improvement.
Identifying support needed
64 percent of workers say that being given training and better career support would encourage them to stay with their employer on average six years longer. For desk-free workers, it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the support and training they need, when they spend the majority of their working lives with external parties like customers or patients. Gathering external feedback helps to ensure that your desk-free workers’ day-to-day challenges are accurately assessed, and that they can as a result be given the same thorough level of support and relevant training afforded to their desk-based colleagues.
Business success
Interaction with external parties directly influences the reputation and success of the business – and therefore is a vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to assessing the performance of your business as a whole. To keep constantly improving customer service and stakeholder relations, make sure you are opening up opportunities for external feedback. You can use these insights to learn and develop not only your workers, but your business processes and strategies.
How can you gather external feedback?
To harness the power of external feedback, organisations must establish robust systems for collection. Just sending out an email is unlikely to be effective, as it will involve identifying email addresses, people may not respond and it will be difficult to connect the dots between the service provided and the individuals involved.
Future-facing performance management software allows employees to request external feedback at the touch of a button, in real-time. OneAdvanced’s Performance & Talent achieves this by the generation of an external feedback link personal to each employee, which can be worn on a lanyard or used to create a QR code. By allowing employees to seamlessly request feedback from those they interact with and remove friction from the process, teams are more likely to gain productive external feedback. This will then be added to their Performance & Talent profile, alongside any internal feedback they may have received – creating a fully rounded view of performance, in one place, for managers to access.
External feedback is a valuable tool for desk-free workers, providing insights that drive performance and enhance customer satisfaction. By establishing robust feedback systems and integrating insights into daily operations, organisations can empower workers and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
If you are ready to explore the benefits of external feedback in your organisation, consider Performance & Talent.
Want to learn more about the challenges and opportunities related to managing your desk-free workers? Check out our latest guide: Desk-free workers: The asset businesses cannot afford to lose
