Use employee feedback to improve business processes

If you want your systems to work in the real world, you need feedback from the people actually living in it.

Too many businesses roll out new processes like it’s a one-and-done project—launch it, announce it, and hope for the best. Then act surprised when things break, or worse, when the team resists quietly and just goes back to the old way.

The truth is that the way you handle change says more about your operations than the change itself.

If you’re not collecting feedback, analyzing it, and looping it back into the system, you’re not improving, you’re guessing. Here’s how to stop guessing and start iterating.

Step 1: Actually ask people

You can’t improve a system from a boardroom.

Start by collecting feedback from the people closest to the process. Do it before, during, and after the change, not just at the end when it's too late to adjust.

Here are smart touchpoints:

• After the initial announcement or rollout meeting
• Post-training or first use of the new workflow
• A week or two into live implementation
• During retros or team reviews

And don’t just ask, “how’s it going?” Get specific:

• What part of the new process is helpful?
• What’s still confusing?
• What broke immediately?
• What would you change if you could?
• What did you wish we told you upfront?

Use Notion here: Drop these questions into a shared form or database. Use a “Feedback Tracker” template to collect responses by date, department, or project. It gives you a running, centralized history of what’s working—and what’s not.

Step 2: Find the patterns (not just the loudest opinions)

Once you’ve got feedback, don’t just skim it. Analyze it. Look for trends.

You’ll start to see the same issues pop up:

• Confusing instructions
• Missing resources
• Misaligned expectations

Separate feedback into two buckets:

1. Feedback on the process itself
2. Feedback on how the change was introduced

Both matter. Both are valuable. And both should shape your systems going forward.

Step 3: Prioritize or get overwhelmed

You don’t need to fix everything.

Trying to tackle all feedback at once is the fastest way to burn out your team and dilute real progress. Prioritize based on:

• What’s creating the most confusion or friction
• What affects the highest number of people
• What’s most critical to business outcomes

Then table the rest. Improvement is a cycle, not a sprint.

Step 4: Build the fix

Now you know what’s wrong. Time to act.

Create a focused, specific action plan:

• What exactly is changing?
• Who owns it?
• When is it getting done?
• How will we know it worked?

Track this plan somewhere your team can see it. Notion is great for this—assign tasks, set deadlines, and keep all feedback linked to action items so nothing gets lost in translation.

Step 5: Roll It out

When you implement the change, communicate it clearly. Re-train where necessary. Make the updates visible. And keep the feedback loop open.

The change isn’t done just because the doc was updated.

Ask again:

• Did this solve the issue?
• Is this version better?
• What needs to change next?

You’re not just tweaking systems—you’re building trust. When people feel heard, they lean in. They take ownership. That’s where your best systems start.

Feedback isn’t a one-time thing

Change is constant. Processes evolve. People come and go.

If your systems can’t adapt, they die.

Use employee feedback as a core part of your operations—not a post-mortem. Make it visible, trackable, and actionable. Use tools like Notion to keep it all connected: insights, actions, updates, and decisions in one place.

Because the best systems aren’t built in isolation—they’re co-created with the people who use them every day.

Want to build a better internal feedback loop? We help teams design systems that evolve—with clarity, not chaos. Let’s talk.