All the presents have been opened, mince pies eaten and the Buble tracks played to death, ready to be returned to the depths of the Spotify playlists until next year. If like us, you’ve now returned to work and you’re clinging onto Christmas cheer, it’s likely that your colleagues, employees and customers are doing the very same. At a time where we’re managing January blues, enduring the cold dark nights and trying to forget what we may (or may not) have done at the work Christmas party, it’s time to keep spirits high.
We all understand the importance of asking customers “How are we doing?” in order to monitor performance and improve, but are you doing the same for your employees? It’s often the case that brands will only ask their employees the same question just once a year in their annual engagement surveys.
2019 was a busy year, so what sticks out in your mind? The ongoing discussions of Brexit, a Cricket World Cup win for England, Notre Dame on fire! Casting your mind back over the year will bring back the good, the bad and possibly even the ugly. But if you had to summarise the way you felt in those moments how much can you recall, given one opportunity?
Much like your customers, your employees’ preferences and expectations are ever-evolving. As employees become more mobile, autonomous and diverse, the traditional top-down annual survey approach is an increasingly outdated measure and mechanism for engagement. Instead of taking one moment in the year to gather the thoughts, feelings and experiences of your employees, an always-on listening approach gives your employees a platform to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas whenever they want to.
Real time insight from your employees can often add meaningful context to your customer feedback. For example, a customer may complain that their payment wasn’t taken on time, while your employees share that the billing process is manual and time-consuming. By consolidating feedback from both your customers’ and employees’ worlds, you can explore the associations between their experiences and start to make improvements, which benefit all. As the saying goes, happy employees = happy customers!
But what’s insight without action? When your customers give feedback about their experience with you, it’s vital to close the loop and show that you’re listening and being proactive to make a change; there should be no difference when it comes to your employees. By closing the loop with your employees and keeping them informed of how their feedback is driving change and improvements, you can increase motivation, boost engagements and improve response rates.
Say goodbye to January blues and start 2020 on a positive note by creating personal and meaningful conversation with your employees, understanding employee emotion, and capturing real-time feedback in the moment through multiple channels that cater to the diversity of your employee audience.
Find out how to capture the voice of your employees here.