Mid-year feedback is only valuable if it leads to visible action, especially on the frontline.
In many frontline environments, feedback isn’t just lost; it doesn’t have a chance to be given. The channels to share it often don’t exist, making it impossible for employees to have their voices heard. And when feedback is collected, the next challenge is acting on it and showing employees what’s changed as a result.
When feedback goes nowhere, it costs more than you think
Across my career leading complex, operationally intensive businesses, I’ve seen how frontline teams will engage. They will ask questions, offer input and raise concerns when they believe someone is listening. But that belief is fragile. It’s built not through surveys, but through visible action. When feedback leads to nothing, it creates more than just disengagement. It creates doubt.
Doubt that leadership understands their world. Doubt that communication travels both ways and doubt that their voice matters.
That doubt, left unchecked, chips away at productivity, safety and culture, especially in environments where speed, trust and clarity are essential.
The digital divide is wider than we admit
There’s another problem lurking beneath most feedback strategies: access.
We’ve worked with companies that’ve done paper-based field surveys, and a consistent finding emerged. The overwhelming sentiment from employees? “We feel left out.” Not just from decision-making, but from communication altogether.
Other clients have recognised that while some employees can easily complete surveys or raise issues via digital channels, the majority, often 70-80% of the workforce, can’t. They don’t have corporate email addresses. They aren’t sitting behind computers. They’re out in the field, in the trucks, on the shop floor. Their feedback doesn’t get captured, not because they don’t have something to say, but because the system doesn’t make space to hear it.
If you can’t hear from the majority, you can’t lead them
As leaders, we like to think of ourselves as data-driven, but if the data only comes from the digitally connected few, we risk making decisions that don’t reflect the reality of most. And if we act only on the loudest, easiest voices to reach, we miss the silent signals from the frontline: the missed opportunities, the unflagged issues, the simple ideas that could spark real change.
We also miss the chance to build credibility with the people who need to see it most, the people who keep operations moving.
So, how do we close the loop?
It starts with two things: Access and visibility.
- Access is the first step to action
Feedback systems shouldn’t move slower than the people they’re designed to support. We need tools that surface insights quickly, route them to the right decision-makers, and push updates back out to employees in real-time. That means using mobile-first platforms, enabling frontline managers with better visibility, and building the kind of communication infrastructure that doesn’t rely on noticeboards or paper memos. - Make action visible
Frontline teams don’t expect every piece of feedback to result in sweeping change. But they do want to know that it’s been heard, and where possible, that something has been done. That’s where most organisations fall short. We bury action in spreadsheets, committee notes, and cascading messages that never reach the ground. If you’ve changed a process, simplified a policy, or created a new training module, say so. Communicate it clearly and show the link back to the feedback that inspired it.
Technology doesn’t replace leadership. It supports it.
This isn’t about automating empathy. It’s about building the systems that allow leadership to act quickly, visibly, and consistently, even across tens of thousands of employees. When feedback can be given in the flow of work, and action can be shown without delay, we move from reactive to responsive.
At Wyzetalk, we’ve seen the impact of closing the loop. Engagement goes up, issues get resolved faster and, most importantly, people start believing that feedback isn’t just a formality. It’s a function of how the business operates.