There is an undeniable correlation between the levels of employee engagement and customer satisfaction. It’s simple: make employees happier and your customer experience efforts will be rewarded.
What drives employee engagement?
Studies have shown that in the main, salary isn’t it. Being understood, trusted and developed is a much stronger driver of engagement. Whilst these studies can provide valuable oversight into the industry as a whole; how do you know where the issues lie in your own business? Only by understanding engagement data within your own teams, and the correlation to your own business data, can you truly understand the effect of your employees’ mindset.
Identify the key drivers of engagement and loyalty to build strong teams, increase productivity and reduce employee churn.
What drives YOUR employees’ engagement?
You need to ask them! Regular pulse surveys have been proven to provide this insight into your employees’ experience. But feedback must be captured frequently and personably to provide the data you need in order to make a sustained improvement. The annual staff survey just isn’t enough.
WHAT TO ASK YOUR EMPLOYEES TO ASSESS ENGAGEMENT.
The answers to the following questions offer a good indication of employee engagement:
- Advocate: “Would you recommend working for us to your family and friends?”
- Appreciation: “Does your manager give you praise and recognition when you do well?”
- Autonomy: “Do you have the freedom you need to make your customers happy?”
- Pride: “How proud are you to work for us?”
- Support: “How able are you to meet your customers’ expectations?”
- Value: “Do we make you feel like your job is important?”
Ask. Monitor. Refine. Repeat.
We wouldn’t recommend that you ask all these questions at once, rather choose one and monitor then change the question to see how the scale of responses changes. Follow each question with a ‘quantifier’ eg a multiple-choice question such as ‘what stops you being able to meet your customers’ expectations?’. End with an open-ended or free text box for anything else they would like to tell you. (This is where you often get the nuggets of information that facilitates effective change!)
Monitor the ups and the downs of employee engagement.
Sustainable change is only achievable when these elements of employee engagement are measured frequently. The real insight comes from measuring the highs and lows against other business success indicators. Here you start to understand the cause and effect of employee engagement for your own business and have all the detail you need to make any necessary improvements.
