For a lot of accounting firms, annual performance reviews are par for the course. Yet too often, feedback doesn’t flow the other way. Firm owners often assume that their employees are happy as long as they’re productive, but that might not always be the case.

If you want to reduce turnover at your firm, actively seeking out feedback is one of the best ways to help. In this article, we’ll cover how to collect employee feedback, and what questions you can ask about five key elements of a healthy work culture.

How to collect employee feedback

One of the most common strategies for collecting employee feedback is conducting anonymous surveys. 

But think back to a time when you were emailed an anonymous survey at work – did you worry that it wasn’t really anonymous? Chances are, your employees do too. 

Unless you create an open-door culture that welcomes feedback, your anonymous survey will be full of overly cautious answers. That means adopting a growth mindset and making it clear you’re open to feedback in performance reviews and 1-on-1’s.

Once you’ve established a feedback-driven culture, the next thing to consider is what questions to ask. Below are five key elements of work culture that drive engagement, and a few possible survey questions for each one.

1. Company values that create a sense of purpose

There’s a growing trend of employees looking for purpose at work. Chances are, your firm delivers a lot of value to your clients: you help them stay compliant, save money, and uphold their integrity in financial reporting.

In order to gauge whether or not your employees feel a greater sense of purpose too, you could ask questions like:

• What inspires you?

• What motivates you to do your best work?

• How do you feel about the mission of our firm?

These more global questions can help you determine what types of purpose employees connect to, and whether or not your firm gives them the chance to find meaning in their work.

2. A work culture that prevents burnout

This tax season, it’s likely that some of your employees will struggle with burnout, no matter how much of a sense of purpose they have. Prevent burnout by asking your team:

• Do you feel that your workload is manageable?

• How much overtime do you have to work to complete projects?

• What type of projects do you find the least stressful? The most stressful?

You can use ProCharted to get a birds’ eye view of what your employees are working on and how many projects they have – and compare these insights with their feedback to help spot burnout before it happens.

3. Communication that drives collaboration 

Good communication is one of the cornerstones of a healthy workplace, but only if it helps employees collaborate. Grammarly’s 2023 State of Business Communication report found that people are communicating more at work, but they’re not doing it well – and it’s costing businesses $12,506 per employee per year.

To gauge how well your employees are communicating with each other, you can ask them questions like:

• Are your colleagues responsive?

• When you have a question, is it easy to get the information you need to do your job?

• Do you ever hesitate to ask a question or respond to someone at work?

This can help uncover whether there is unhealthy conflict, information silos, or inefficient communication styles blocking your employees from their best work.

4. Flexible work that matches employee needs

While hybrid and remote work requires some creative management practices, the payoff is a more desirable workplace that attracts top talent.

But while some employees prefer fully remote or hybrid work, others prefer in-office collaboration. In order to ensure your workplace matches what employees are looking for, ask them what their preferences are in your surveys:

• How many hours per week would you prefer to work in-office?

• How many hours per week would you prefer to work remotely?

• What are the upsides/downsides to either type of work at our firm?

The last question on this list can help you gauge if there are in-office or remote practices you can improve on.

5. A leadership style that matches your team

Sometimes, teams and leaders clash because team members are better suited to a different leadership style than you have.

For example, you might have a bureaucratic leadership style where you want everything done by the books. But it’s possible your team might actually do their best work with a more laissez-faire style. To determine what leadership style is right for your employees, you could ask:

• Do you thrive best with more or less direction from management?

• What kinds of things are you looking for from a leader?

• Describe a great boss you’ve had in the past – what made them special?

You might not be able to completely change your own leadership style, but you can make small adjustments to suit different team members.

A few things to keep in mind about feedback

Asking for feedback is the first step to fixing your culture, but there are a few important things to keep in mind:

Be strategic: Combine questions in 1-on-1 meetings with anonymous surveys for the best results. That helps employees trust that you’re genuinely open to feedback, and that they won’t be penalized for critical feedback on anonymous surveys.

Time your questions: Transitional periods can be great times to collect employee feedback on a new direction for your firm, new automation tools, or new processes. Some of the above questions can also make for great interview questions as well.

Pay attention to the source: Over time, you might find that you might get specific types of feedback from employees working on certain projects. This can help you spot if there may be certain clients creating issues for your team.

Tools like ProCharted can help give you an overview of what projects your employees are working on, how much time they’re spending on them, and whether or not you have the capacity to manage due dates. Combined with employee feedback, these powerful insights can help you create a better work environment for your current and future employees – and prevent turnover in the process.