Using Continuous Feedback for Driving High Performance Teams

While there has been a boom in the number of SaaS businesses, only a small number of them sustain in this industry. The scenario is such that you have to focus on the most important things and have a highly aligned team in a limited time. To do that, communication and active collaboration become critical. 

43% of the well-engaged employees get feedback at least once a week. You can either learn to manage the team the hard way or learn from the mistakes others have already made.

Why continuous feedback is helpful for SaaS teams?

You can’t slack in the initial growth phase of your SaaS business.

It’s hard to convert the ideal buyers to purchase your product; you must build a high-quality product or service and trust.

The team is the deciding factor here because, at the start, you will be particularly leveraging your limited human resources.

Here are the main reasons why continuous feedback works:

• Helps the team identify and address issues
• Understanding employee problems and solving them
• Helps in recognizing and rewarding good performance
• Employee satisfaction
• Drives employee engagement
• Helping team members align with the business goals
• Enhancing individual and team performance

Successful teams have proven that real-time feedback and continuous improvement enable the team to perform better.

Five continuous feedback practices to drive high team performance in a SaaS business

Use centralized software

You know how messy the employee data, spreadsheets, reports, etc., can get.

A centralized collaboration cum performance management software platform makes the employee’s life much easier.

Paper-based strategic plans don’t work anymore. It fills the desk, and the remote employees can participate in the action.

Here’s what a continuous feedback-based software can do:

• Provides handy access to the process with a mobile application
• Lets everyone collaborate in real-time with cloud-based functionality
• Manage OKRs, employee performance, surveys, etc., on the same platform.
• Transparency in the assigned goals, OKRs, and individual feedback.
• Records essential feedback and employee surveys.
• Displays automatically generated data in visual and easy-to-understand reports
• Integrated with other frequently used tools like spreadsheets, Gmail, CRM, etc.
• Makes it easy to review performance based on numbers.

Conduct regular check-ins and meetings

Regular team meetings and check-ins are the core of continuous feedback and improvement.

How else are you going to realize mistakes and amend them?

High-performing teams naturally engage in active collaboration.

If it is the software they are working on, they require a system to support that smooth collaboration.

You use check-ins to monitor progress and maintain alignment between the team members and their business-oriented goals.

The following system is a good way to conduct effective check-ins:

• Get the team onboard an OKR cum performance management software
• Ensure everyone is assigned their goals and OKRs.
• Set up calendar notifications for the check-ins on the same software
• A weekly schedule is an effective way to conduct check-ins, especially if you have a small team.
• Conduct team meetings while reviewing the OKR progress.
• Promote free communication and welcome feedback from anyone on the team
• Note down takeaways from the meetings. 

Data-driven and actionable insights

There is enough awareness in the business world now that you can’t rely on guesses and intuitions anymore.

For a SaaS startup, there is a lot of data already available, and the data they are gathering from their online presence and customer feedback.

You should use continuous performance management software that lets you gather relevant team data and review it in the form of visual reports.

Take specific decisions based on the data. For example, you can find out which distribution channel to target from the marketing and sales analytics.

Another thing can be identifying vanity metrics or irrelevant OKRs.

With data analytics, you can extract valuable, actionable insights that will positively impact the business and focus on the objectives.

Employee satisfaction surveys

About 92% of workers prefer feedback more than once a year.

You don’t want your SaaS product manager, who has been working for the last 1.5 years, to leave the company because they want a more flexible work schedule.

The point here is that you have to know and value what your team thinks about their job, work environment, and culture.

You need a system to identify any employee issues. If it is something you can solve, you may retain those valuable employees.

The following points describe how to conduct effective surveys:

• Use pre-designed survey and questionnaire templates or create custom templates to fill the need
• Set timely notifications to start the surveys
• Data analytics and visualized reports to get valuable insights from the feedback
• Use anonymous surveys to get helpful feedback wherever possible

Promoting a high-growth culture

You want your team to believe that continuous improvement based on employee behavior and actions works great for the business.

And it does.

For today’s fast-paced startups, it should be their default behavior.

Here are some good practices you can implement throughout your organization:

• Have a highly aligned team culture using the OKR framework and constant feedback.
• Set clearly defined and realistic goals and expectations.
• Communicate company vision and values well. Ensure consistency here; otherwise, it is bad for the culture.
• Psychologically safe work environment. Welcome, all opinions and criticism for better use.
• Sufficient growth opportunities for the employees.
• Use of technology to support teamwork. Don’t forget the remote workers.

Need more assistance regarding boosting the performance of your teams? Reach out to us here!