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Are your people satisfied or engaged?

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innovation and customer experience speaker canada

Are your people satisfied or engaged?

There are several direct correlations between your employees being engaged and client loyalty. In a 2012 meta-analysis of 263 analysis studies across 192 firms, Gallup found that companies in the top quartile for engaged employees, (compared with the bottom quartile) had twenty two percent higher profitability, ten percent higher customer ratings, twenty eight percent less theft and forty eight percent fewer safety incidents. Do you think they may have discovered something?!

Measure overall employee engagement

Rewarding employees is only part of keeping employees engaged. Even if you hand out gift cards every quarter, that may not be enough to motivate employees. It’s a good idea to use employee engagement surveys to find out what employees think of their jobs and your organization in general. But in order to get useful responses, you need to ask the right questions. Here are some employee survey examples to get started:

  • Give your employees a survey to get an overall sense of their engagement and employee satisfaction
  • Ask employees to share their perceptions of a co-worker or manager’s behavior with a 360-degree employee evaluation survey
  • Ensure employees that their responses are anonymous so they feel they can give you honest feedback
  • Survey employees regularly to set internal and external employee engagement benchmarks so you can measure progress and set goals

Measure the underlying work conditions

Once you collect general employee feedback, you need to figure out why employees feel (or don’t feel) motivated and engaged. Ask your employees to weigh in on specific workplace issues with human resources surveys that address issues like:

  • Career development
  • Relationships with management
  • Employee benefits
  • Work environment
  • Work-life balance

And, if you do happen to lose an employee or two, make sure they fill out an employee exit survey so you can collect invaluable feedback on what may be causing employees to look elsewhere for employment.

Reward employees for their good work

So what do you do if you find employees aren’t motivated? Show employees you appreciate their hard work–and reward them for their efforts–by incentivizing excellent work. You can achieve this by identifying all-star employees and awarding them publicly with a desirable prize, such as a bonus or a gift card. Whether you establish regular quarterly goals or reward one-off achievements, keep your employees motivated and engaged so they’re proud of (and invested in) your organization. In turn, they’ll treat your customers with the care they deserve. Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a privately held travel management company owned by Carlson Companies that handles both business and leisure clients and operates in 174 countries and territories, with 22,000 employees, understands the power or incentive. “An estimated 98% of their employees receive some portion of their annual compensation based on incentive programs” says a former HR vice president for the company.

Even if your people are skill-based, is there some program you could established to ensure their engagement at what they do every day?

Engaged employees serve customers better

Even though employee engagement is complex and has many factors, get a head start on keeping employees happy by asking them how they feel. When you collect employee feedback that will direct improvements internally, your organization will shine on the outside. Improved employee engagement and customer experience? It’s a win-win.