May 14, 2026
Employee Feedback Isn’t the Same as Listening. Four EX Experts Explain the Difference
Nearly three-quarters of leaders believe feedback is acted on in their workplace, yet fewer than half of frontline workers agree. What actually breaks the link between listening and action? And what does closing that gap look like in practice? We asked four EX practitioners and experts to share their honest views.
The numbers are striking, but perhaps not surprising to EX leaders. According to Axonify’s 2026 Frontline Operations Report, which surveyed 1,594 respondents across retail, hospitality, and food service, a notable perception gap exists between those who design employee listening programmes and those who are supposed to benefit from them.
The same report found that 87% of leaders believe important updates reach workers – yet only 56% of frontline staff say this is true. You can read CXM’s full analysis of the research here. But what lies beneath those numbers? What organisational dynamics cause the gap to persist – and what does genuinely closing it look like?
We put those questions to four EX leaders and experts working across hospitality, retail and professional services. Their answers, collectively, suggest the problem does not primarily stem from a lack of good technology. Rather, it’s about listening being undervalued altogether –and this leading to performative actions, distorted signals, lack of accountability, and employee fear.
The Listening That Isn’t Really Listening
Before asking what breaks the link between listening and action, it’s worth asking whether meaningful listening is taking place at all. Two of our contributors argue that organisations are confusing the mechanics of feedback collection with the act of actual listening – and that this confusion is where the gap originates.
Howard Krais, co-founder of True and co-author of ‘Leading the Listening Organisation‘, draws a clear distinction between the two: “Too often, companies confuse collecting feedback with listening. They’re not the same. Listening only happens when we do the hearing part and then respond appropriately. Running a survey and replying six months later isn’t listening, it’s keeping the process going.”
Krais points to a structural reason this persists at the leadership level. “For leaders, the reality is that listening isn’t treated as a serious leadership capability. In the research for our book, we found little evidence that senior leaders are taught about listening. Most executive and MBA programmes focus far more on projection than perception, getting a message out rather than genuinely understanding what’s coming back.”
Zhanna Zhuravleva, HR & Culture Transformation Leader at What If HR, identifies a related but distinct failure – the performance of listening in place of the real thing: “The biggest illusion in employee feedback is that listening happened at all. A manager nods, paraphrases, maintains eye contact – and genuinely believes the loop is closed. But people can tell the difference between technique and actual presence. When someone senses that active listening is being performed at them rather than with them, it builds distance, not trust.”
How the Signal Gets Lost in the Hierarchy
Even when feedback is given genuinely and received with real intent, it faces another obstacle on its way up: the hierarchy itself. Zhuravleva describes a process of unconscious distortion that happens at every level: “Whatever signal does get through then enters the hierarchy – and each layer unconsciously edits it to manage its own anxiety. Bad news gets softened, urgency gets reframed. By the time feedback reaches the boardroom, it no longer resembles what was said on the floor. The organisation hasn’t filtered information – it has protected itself from it.”
Her fix for this problem? “Go to the source, skip a level, hear the signal before it gets translated. Repeat it back publicly and precisely: ‘This is what we heard.’ Then name one concrete change, one owner, one deadline. Feedback becomes action only when the person who gave it can see their words in the outcome.”
For Krais, the implications go beyond communications. “Closing the gap means treating listening not as a campaign or channel, but as a key means of uncovering the intelligence that leads into decision-making itself.”
Accountability: Who Owns the Feedback?
Even with genuine listening and an undistorted signal, feedback can still stall if no one is clearly responsible for what happens next. As James Ferguson, Director of Culture at Wurzak Hotel Group and author of ‘Seek the Good and Celebrate’ highlights: “Feedback often fails because no one is clearly responsible for carrying it from idea to implementation. Without accountability, even the best intentions stop at ‘we’ll look into it.'”
Ferguson draws on a quote often attributed to American essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson to make the point: “One of my favourite quotes from Emerson is: ‘What you do speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say.’ To me, that means: Don’t tell me, show me. Don’t tell employees you value feedback or that you follow through, demonstrate it through action.”
Ferguson believes one person should own the entire feedback journey – from collection through to the moment the employee who gave the idea is told what happened. “That final step is critical because it turns feedback into trust. Employees want to feel seen, heard, and supported. When organisations visibly act on feedback and recognise the people behind it, employees are far more likely to stay engaged and continue contributing ideas that improve the business and drive performance.”
Creating the Conditions: Preparing People to Give and Receive Feedback
The gap doesn’t only exist between leaders and workers. Jane Austin, HR Director at Wave, points to another feedback disconnect: whether employees feel safe enough to give meaningful feedback, and whether managers are genuinely equipped to receive it.
“Fear is the most common issue,” Austin says, “as although giving and receiving positive feedback can be a great experience, not many people feel comfortable having to give ‘developmental’ feedback, and yet without it, no one improves. By the same token, employees (at every level) don’t want to hear negatives and so the cycle continues.”
Austin’s team ran an entire programme – called ‘The F Word’ – to address this, rolling it out first to people managers and then to all employees. She notes that language plays a more significant role than most organisations acknowledge: “Most people sigh when faced with a feedback question about a colleague that says ‘what can this person improve on’. Straight away, it implies a negative or weakness. Yet asking the question ‘how can this person get even better’, feels nothing but positive.”
On creating the conditions for feedback to flow: “To break the feedback gap in organisations, consider the language you use, but also invest in preparing everyone. That means reassuring people that it is safe to receive feedback […] and giving people the tools to frame feedback so it is delivered well. There are so many models out there, but I’d suggest focusing on one so that it becomes familiar and the language of your organisation.”
The Common Thread Running Through Feedback Gaps
What connects all four perspectives is trust – or rather, its absence. Leaders who do not see feedback as vital business intelligence opt for performative listening, which erodes the trust that makes honest input possible. Meanwhile, employees who have watched their feedback dissolve into silence stop giving it, because they no longer believe things will change. Others hold back altogether, because the culture does not feel psychologically safe enough to speak in.
Frontline workers are the people customers interact with every day, so the stakes extend well beyond employee engagement. The intelligence they hold about what customers are actually saying and feeling is among the most valuable data an organisation has. Closing the gap between listening and action is, therefore, a prerequisite for delivering on the customer experience too.
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