How to Poll Your Team (and Encourage Open Feedback)

pcmag.com:

Asking a team for input on a decision or picking a time when a group of people can meet shouldn't happen in an email thread. Nor should it happen in an unstructured message in Slack, Microsoft Teams, or whatever other team messaging app you use. When you need to poll a group, a polling tool works best because the information you're asking is clear, and so are the responses. It also increases team communication overall.

Polling tools can be standalone apps or provided through business collaboration tools. Wherever you find them, polling tools turn the messy and tedious job of collecting responses into something much more efficient.

Using polling apps keeps teams engaged. At work, and especially in remote work, polls give employees a way to be heard. They keep lines of communication open. If a manager only rarely asks for blunt feedback from a team, the team members may hesitate to give it. But when people are asked to share their honest opinions often, they may be more willing to share critical information that managers and executives need to hear. (I explore in a lot more detail how to improve workplace communication in remote and hybrid settings in my book The Everything Guide to Remote Work(Opens in a new window).)

For any team that isn't used to giving feedback freely and often, I would highly encourage managers to start by incorporating low-stakes polls as a way to ease them into giving feedback more regularly. Low-stakes polls can ask about any topic that people can answer openly without worrying about raising eyebrows or being reprimanded for their responses. "Would you prefer to hold our weekly team meeting in the morning or afternoon?" 

Polls are essentially a feedback mechanism. They let you capture feedback