How to Collect Employee Feedback in MS Teams

In this guide, I’ll show you how (and why) you could collect employee feedback using Microsoft Teams.

And there are two important aspects to this.

• One is collecting employee feedback. Not only this is the best way to get a feel for what your employees think, what issues they face, and what ideas they might have to make the workplace better. It’s also what employees want. According to various research, up to 80% of them want to participate in employee feedback programs when available.
• The other is using MS Teams for that. And needless to say, this is one of the most effective tools to run employee feedback programs.

In this guide, we’ll address both aspects. I’ll also show you how to ensure that your employee feedback program in MS Teams is successful, and what tools to use to run it.

Why Collect Employee Feedback in Microsoft Teams?

Without a doubt, MS Teams beats most other channels for collecting employee feedback.

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1. MS Teams is seamlessly integrated in employees daily workflows

For most companies, MS Teams is already a central hub for all communication and collaboration.

It’s only natural, then, to incorporate it in the feedback collection process. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you have to collect feedback directly in Teams. It’d be quite impossible to collect employees insights anonymously with it, after all.

But even if you incorporate MS Teams as part of the process, you’ll make providing feedback feel like a natural part of a daily routine.

And that, in turn, would lead to higher participation and less friction.

2. MS Teams offers both synchronous and asynchronous feedback options

Some employees are happy to offer synchronous feedback. They want to sit with you, discuss their ideas, and share opinions.

But many might prefer to do it on their own time. Perhaps they’re in a different time zone than you. Or work remotely. Or simply prefer not to discuss their ideas in person.

MS Teams supports both real-time (synchronous) feedback through meetings, chats, and calls, and asynchronous feedback via forms, and dedicated feedback channels.

With such flexibility, you can accommodate different working styles, time zones, and collect feedback from remote or hybrid teams.

Not to mention that asynchronous feedback will allow you to collect employee suggestions anonymously.

3. Microsoft Teams allows you to reach remote and distributed teams easily

MS Teams has been designed to facilitate communication and accessibility across all locations which makes it ideal for organizations with remote or hybrid workforces.

It doesn’t matter where employees are based. With MS Teams, you can always be in touch, and that also means, being able to collect their feedback.

4. MS Teams offers a rich ecosystem of feedback tools and extensions

MS Teams offers a whole range of built-in apps like Polls, Praise, and Forms that allow you to collect employee feedback openly.

On top of that, there are plenty of third-party integrations and tools that enable anything from quick pulse surveys to a full anonymous employee feedback capabilities.

(Later in this guide, I’ll show you exactly what are the best tools to use to collect employee feedback in MS Teams.)

4 Drawbacks of MS Teams for Employee Feedback

Unfortunately, as great as MS Teams is for collecting employee feedback, it does have its cons, too.

1. Notification overload

Teams is already a hub for messages, meetings, and notifications.

Adding feedback requests into this busy environment can lead to feedback fatigue, and make employees choose to ignore or rush through surveys and polls because they feel overwhelmed by these constant prompts.

2. Lack of anonymity and psychological safety

This can be a serious disadvantage to using MS Teams to collect employee feedback.

Firstly, many feedback mechanisms within Microsoft Teams (like channel discussions or open polls) are not truly anonymous. So aren’t channels dedicated to feedback, and so on.

Unfortunately, the lack of anonymity can discourage honest feedback, especially on sensitive topics, as employees may fear their input is traceable or visible to managers and peers.

The good news is that there are ways to overcome this. Many anonymous employee feedback tools (like Suggestion Ox, for example) integrate with MS Teams and allow you to collect truly anonymous feedback with it.

For example, here is a feedback reminder from Suggestion Ox within MS Teams.

With this tool, you can run a completely anonymous employee feedback program inside MS Teams.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SUGGESTION OX MS TEAMS INTEGRATION HERE.

3. Challenges with participation

I have to say, this is something I haven’t realized at first. But once someone pointed this issue to me, it just felt like something so obvious…

Basically, in large organizations with many teams and channels, feedback forms, surveys, or suggestion box notifications can get lost, buried deep in the constant flow of new messages, and ultimately, overlooked.

Employees may not see or engage with feedback requests if they are buried among other posts or if they are not part of the right channels.

The result, unfortunately, is that your employee feedback program mightn’t be as successful.

Naturally, there are ways around it. One is to ensure regular prompts for feedback, and making those notifications more engaging.

But it is something worth keeping in mind, and investigating if you’re feeling that the program isn’t getting as many responses as you’ve hoped for.

4. Unequal Access to MS Teams

Not all employees may use Teams equally. Your frontline workers, field staff, or those less engaged with digital tools might simply not be logging in to Teams enough to participate in feedback programs.

This might result in two challenges:

• Lower participation levels, and
• Results being skewed towards in-house employees, and missing important perspectives from other teams.

As usual, there are ways around it, too.

Tools like Suggestion Ox allow you to notify and give access to employee feedback programs using several channels beside MS Teams – Email, QR codes, and more.

This way, you can promote the program within MS Teams and reach teams that do not engage with the platform as often, and collect feedback from across all employee base.

Best Practices for Collecting Employee Feedback in MS Teams

You know, I wish collecting feedback in MS Teams was as simple as posting a request for comments in a channel.

But it isn’t.

In fact, running an employee suggestion program in MS Teams requires keeping certain best practices in mind:

1. Prioritize Anonymity

It’s hard to dispute the benefits of anonymous feedback.

For one, when employees feel that their identities are protected, they’re more likely to share more honest feedback. They don’t have to be afraid that what they say might turn against them after all. They can share what they really think, and they do, just like in the example I shared above.

Similarly, people are more likely to even take a survey or fill in a feedback form when they know that their response is 100% anonymous. As a result, you collect more replies, and your people engage with you more.

But by default, feedback collected with MS Teams is far from anonymous.

To ensure anonymity, you need to use third-party integrations like Suggestion Ox, Engage365, or Teamflect.

2. Clearly communicate the purpose for collecting feedback

The usual goal of collecting anonymous data is to get your employees’ perspectives on a subject or decision. Explain the reason for the survey to make your team more relaxed around the questions and more open to providing honest answers.

Let your employees know why you need their feedback. And be specific. This will help your employees stay focused on the feedback they provide, keeping it in alignment with your goals for the survey.

Another idea – Explain how feedback will be used (e.g., “Your input will shape our hybrid work policy”) This might convince more employees that their voices matter, and will have impact on the workplace.

3. Space out requests

Even though it feels like an urban myth, feedback fatigue is, in fact, quite a stark reality.

Employees are overloaded with various requests. It’s not just to provide feedback, of course. But the sheer volume of various requests may make many unsusceptible to your notifications or even negative towards any surveys or feedback programs.

To overcome this issue, first and foremost, avoid overloading employees with frequent surveys.

Also, space out reminders so that they don’t constantly hear about your feedback program.

Another idea is to segment your target audience. Target specific teams or roles instead of the entire organization. This will improve relevance and ensure that employees don’t see the same request over and over again.

4. Address Accessibility Gaps

Not all employees might have the same access or opportunity to access MS Teams regularly. Front-line staff, service teams, and more might not use Teams as often. Or, perhaps only their manager use it to communicate with other departments on behalf of everyone on their team.

So, enable other ways to access the suggestion box – QR codes, email links, and more – for employees without constant desktop access.

5. Mitigate Bias

Bias is an unfortunate reality in almost any feedback.

When providing feedback, employees’ insights might get distorted by unconscious preferences or stereotypes.

Similarly, bias often creeps up through subjective language, favoritism, or inconsistent evaluation standards, undermining fairness and trust.

Luckily, there are ways to counter and mitigate feedback bias. One is to use structured and standardized questions that reduce the possibility for subjective interpretation. Another is to use AI tools that would flag biased language in your feedback forms.

Best Tools to Collect Employee Feedback in MS Teams

Suggestion Ox – The Best Anonymous Suggestion Box for MS Teams

Best for: Anonymous employee feedback.

Suggestion Ox is a dedicated anonymous suggestion box for Microsoft Teams.

Key features:

• Anonymous Feedback Collection:
  • With Suggestion Ox, all submissions are anonymous by default, with no identifying metadata stored.
  • Admins can reply privately to submitters without revealing their identity.
• AI-Powered Tools:
  • Response drafting: AI helps craft thoughtful replies to feedback.
  • Sentiment analysis: (Implied by AI tools, though not explicitly stated in sources).
• Case Management:
  • Assign and track issues: Tag, prioritize, and resolve feedback systematically.
  • Confidential labels: Optional sensitivity tags for submissions (requires enabling “Enhanced Teams Integration” in some configurations).

With Suggestion Ox for MS Teams, you can:

• collect anonymous employee feedback with MS Teams,
• automatically remind your people to share their insights, and
• receive their ideas, questions, and concerns directly into your preferred private channel.

Here’s a screenshot of what a typical feedback reminder from Suggestion Ox looks like in Teams:

And here’s what a typical Suggestion Ox notification of a new idea looks like in an MS Teams channel.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SUGGESTION OX FOR MS TEAMS HERE.

Microsoft Viva Pulse – Native MS Teams integration for Pulse Surveys

Best for: Quick pulse surveys

Microsoft Viva Pulse is a feedback tool within the Microsoft Viva suite.

Pulse has been designed to help managers and leaders quickly gather real-time, actionable feedback from employees through short, frequent “pulse” surveys.

Viva Pulse can be added directly to Microsoft Teams, allowing users to create, send, and respond to surveys without leaving their daily workflow. It’s also accessible via web browsers on desktop and mobile devices.

Polly.ai

Best for: Quick polls and surveys

With Polly.ai, you can create polls directly within Teams chats, channels, or meetings with multiple question types: multiple choice, rating scales, trivia, and more.

Poll.ai also features options for conducting live Q&A’s and pre-built templates for quizzes and trivia to boost engagement while collecting employee feedback at the same time.

Zensai

Best for: Regular check-ins.

Zensai is a platform behind Engage 365, a check-in and feedback tool built into Microsoft 365 and Teams. It’s core functionality focuses on providing HR teams with the ability to run regular check-ins and surveys right within the Microsoft suite of tools (including Microsoft Teams.)

With Zensai, you can run weekly check-ins between managers and employees, create a platform for both sides to exchange feedback and ideas, and even run recognition programs right within Microsoft Teams.

And that’s it…

That’s all you need to know about collecting employee feedback with MS Teams.

All that’s left is to get started with creating employee feedback programs and using MS Teams to collect their insights.

Good luck.